Keep Me In Mind
by bealeavable
Summary: Beca and Chloe get together at a party for what both of them think the other thinks is nothing but a one-night stand and assume that that night is the last they will ever see of each other until Chloe walks into Beca's work, a music production company, as their new talent. AU.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Prompted by an anon (you should come off anon so I can give you proper credit). Thanks to Brooke for beta-ing this. Any follows/favorites/ESPECIALLY reviews are much appreciated. Enjoy.**

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Chapter 1

Beca Mitchell doesn't really know what she's doing here.

It's loud and obnoxious and there are _way_ too many people to keep track of, and she knows that the first thing she's going to do is find a drink, sit on the couch, and play around on her iPod all night. It's just how she is.

Her best friend, Jesse Swanson, somehow managed to get her to come here. "This is the last party you'll get to go to a party with me before I leave for San Francisco," he had said over the phone, a slight whining tone to his voice, "Please? For me?"

"Who said I wanted to see you before you leave?" she had said, half joking, half not, but she came anyways, because she had flaked on him at every opportunity she could get whenever he asked her to come out with him and _sort of _felt bad about it.

She walks over to the drink table, shoving past a ridiculous number of people (who would even _want _to have this many people in their house?) and mixes a simple drink of coca-cola and rum into a red solo cup and walks over to the nearest couch _not_ covered with people practically eating each other's faces and pulls out her iPhone and a pair of earbuds, sipping at her drink, when Jesse walks over and stands in front of her, crossing his arms.

"Seriously, Beca?" he yells over the obnoxiously loud music (_god, everything is obnoxious here, including the guy standing in front of me,_ she thinks). "I didn't invite you to this party so you could just sit here and be anti-social."

"You didn't specify what I could and couldn't do at this party, dude," she says, smirking and inserting an earbud into her left ear and pressing "play," "Just that I had to come."

Jesse reaches over with his foot and nudges her leg with his toe before moving to sit beside Beca, swinging his arm around her. "I bet if you looked hard enough, you could find at least _one_ good-looking lady here who'd be interested in you."

Beca groans and wriggles out of his grasp. "You're such a weirdo. Who even _says_ that? Also, why does everyone seem to think parties are only good for hooking up?" she gestures towards the couch on the opposite side of the room from them, where two different couples are making out _in the same space_. Beca cringes. "So gross," she mutters, taking another sip of her drink.

"A guy who's trying to get his best friend laid, because she's been so sex-deprived that she's been a total ass to me and flaking out on everything I invite her to," he deadpans. "Also, parties are, like, 90% only good for hooking up with people. It's a meaningless interaction where you probably never have to see them again but you still get good sex out of it. Depending on whom you hook up with, that is."

Beca rolls her eyes at this."I'm sorry I've been a jerk," she says, "But it's not because I'm 'sex deprived'. Seriously. How much have you had to drink?"

"I'm sure it isn't," he says sarcastically, grinning wide, "I don't know. I had a few shots at the beginning and I think I'm pretty drunk."

She throws the pillow next to her on the couch at him. "I take that apology back. Also, you're a budding alcoholic."

He throws the pillow back, about to say something, before someone comes up behind him.

"Hey," they say, "I'm all for pillow fights, but try not to break anything..."

The two of them turn to see what Beca thinks is probably the most gorgeous girl at this entire party.

She's got wavy, auburn hair that's loose around her shoulders and eyes that are such a bright blue that Beca's pretty sure they might have little lights behind them, and she's wearing a Vampire Weekend crop top with the sleeves cut off and shorts to show off her extremely toned/tanned stomach and arms and legs.

Beca takes out the earbud that was in her ear and stammers. Her mouth is dry all of a sudden."Um-"

Jesse stares at Beca, then back at the girl for a minute before throwing on a wide smile. "Sorry," he says, "Beca here just gets a little aggressive when she's drunk-" Beca punches Jesse in the arm for that, and he mutters out a faint "ow," rubbing his arm. "Case in point."

"I'm not drunk," Beca protests. The girl lets out a soft giggle, and Beca's eyes immediately snap to hers, because it's probably the most adorable sound she's _ever _heard, and this girl makes her heart feel like it's pounding out of its chest and her palms clammy and creates an entire family of butterflies in her stomach (plus its extended family).

"I'm Chloe," she says, extending a hand towards Jesse, who shakes it briefly. "Chloe Beale."

"You must be the host. I'm Tom's friend." he says, "He invited me to this and I brought this lady along." He thrusts a thumb towards Beca.

Chloe nods and smiles again, perfectly straight, white teeth showing behind _really_ soft-looking pink lips, making Beca even more nervous about the fact that she's probably going to reach out and shake Beca's hand, too.

Beca's right in her assumption as Chloe moves her eyes to Beca's and extends her hand towards her. Beca hopes to god that this girl can't feel how sweaty her palms are or how she feels like she's shaking slightly at the prospect of actually touching this girl's hand as she gently slides her hand into hers, smiling weakly as she shakes it.

"I'm Beca," she says nervously, quickly releasing her grip and instinctively wiping her hands off on her jeans.

"Nice to meet the two of you," she says, still looking at Beca with a smile on her face, "How long have you guys been together?"

Jesse's been taking a sip out of his own drink when she says this, and he chokes and starts making this weird sound between choking and laughing.

"Gross!" he splutters, as Beca stares at him with a mixture of disgust and pure embarrassment to be associated with him, "I mean, no offense, Beca," he says, grinning and turning to her, "But we've known each other since we were five. Also," he says, turning back to Chloe, "This chick's gayer than Ellen DeGeneres sitting on top of a rainbow with Skittles-"

"Jesus, Jesse!" Beca shouts, turning bright red and punching him again, and turns back to Chloe. "I'm so sorry about him. He's a really bad drunk."

"I'm not drunk, you're just blurry," he mutters, rubbing his arm.

Chloe's laughing at their interaction, though, and she's back to looking at Beca again. "Huh. So you guys are both single?"

Beca can't help but feel like Chloe's directing the question to her, because Chloe's _still_ looking at her with those godforsaken _blue _eyes. "Yeah," she says, smiling weakly again, "_Definitely_ not dating this weirdo over here."

"Single and ready to mingle!" Jesse yells, getting up and walking (more like stumbling) off into the crowd.

Beca shakes her head. "Sorry about him," she says, wrapping the cord of her earphones around her iPhone and tucking it back into her bag.

"He's funny," Chloe says, sitting next to Beca. Beca stops breathing for a minute because _oh my God she's sitting right next to me and our legs are touching_ before she manages to nod, still not quite breathing.

Chloe gestures to Beca's bag. "What were you listening to before I got here?"

"Mix-I-" Beca stammers before she exhales, running her hand through her hair. "Just a remix of a song that I was playing around with before I got here."

"What? You mix songs?"

Beca can see that Chloe's looking at her through her peripheral vision but she refuses to make eye contact because she might actually end up passing out. "Mhm," she says, nodding again.

"That's so cool! Can I hear?"

Beca freezes, unsure of how to respond, because she's never shown anyone her mixes except for Jesse and a few others for business, and all the ones she showed them weren't personal mixes like the one she had just been listening to. It's a remix of "Titanium" that she had been planning on mashing with another song.

Then she realizes that Jesse was probably right by saying that she'd probably never see anyone at this party ever again, and decides to pull out her iPhone again, subconsciously wanting to show off to this strikingly beautiful redhead. "Here," she mumbles, still not making eye contact with Chloe as she holds up her earbuds, pressing "play". "It's not that good—"

She doesn't finish her sentence because Chloe's grabbing the earbuds and sticking them into her ears. Beca bites her lip nervously as she watches Chloe allow the music to take over the external music blasting out of the various speakers in the living room, and then Chloe slowly starts nodding her head, smiling wide. "This sounds amazing!" she shouts, making Beca flinch after a long while of silence from her, "This song is my jam!" Chloe takes out the headphones, her smile now turned into a smirk as she leans in close to the side of Beca's head, her breath tickling her ear as she says the next words significantly quieter than the previous ones, "My lady jam."

Beca flushes immediately, her fingers slipping around the earbud cord as she tries to wrap them around her phone again.

"That's nice," she stammers, completely unsure of what to say, because Chloe's tracing her fingers along Beca's leg and any coherence Beca might have had before Chloe came is almost completely gone because the butterflies in her stomach have been stirred again and are fluttering around in her stomach.

She quickly leans over to place the iPhone back in her backpack and sits back up again, only to have Chloe's hand move up and brush against Beca's jaw, tilting her face slightly towards hers, and before Beca even knows what's happening, she's _kissing Chloe Beale _and her hands are suddenly tangling in the auburn hair that she had been wanting to touch since she had first seen them.

She feels Chloe's tongue slowly attempt at parting her lips and she obliges without hesitation, a small noise of pleasure sounding out of the back of her throat as she feels Chloe's hand slide around her waist and the other hooking around the back of her neck, pulling her closer, before she realizes that she's in public and she literally _just _dissed everyone else hooking up in public to Jesse and pulls away, letting out a breath that she didn't know she was holding. "People are probably watching—"she starts, before Chloe's hand is in hers and she's being tugged somewhere.

She makes eye contact with Jesse along the way, who is staring, open-mouthed at her, before his face breaks out into a grin and he yells after her, "I'll take care of your stuff, text me in the morning!" and she's tugged around the corner and into a bedroom, possibly Chloe's (she can't really tell because it's dark and _Chloe Beale is taking her to a bedroom)_, and she's pushed against the door, effectively slamming it shut.

She feels Chloe's lips on her neck and she's kissing it and sucking it and _biting at it holy god _and their hands are all over the place as clothes get discarded onto the floor.

"Bed," Chloe breathes, moving back up to attach her lips to Beca's, and they stumble backwards until the back of Beca's knees hit the bed and she's lying down. Chloe's on top of her almost as fast as she falls, and her leg is in between Beca's and Beca feels herself grinding her hips against it and she can't stop moaning because everything Chloe is doing right now—kissing her, biting at her lip, kneading her hands on Beca's breasts, and pushing her thigh against Beca's center—is making her feel like she's going _crazy _and her ears are ringing and she can barely breathe_. _Beca grasps at Chloe's back, Chloe gasping at the feeling of fingernails raking across it, and all Beca has to do is breathe "Please," before Chloe's kissing her way down Beca's body, stopping at her breasts to roll her tongue around each nipple until they're hard and Beca's arching her back towards her mouth, her breath coming in jagged intervals, and Chloe continues her way down Beca's body until she reaches her inner thighs, peppering light kisses around them.

Beca groans and shifts her hips slightly. "Please," she moans again, sliding her fingers into Chloe's hair. Chloe smirks a little and obliges to Beca's pleading, slowly trailing her tongue along Beca's wet folds. Chloe lets out a low moan at the back of her throat, attempting at ignoring the arousal starting in between her own thighs, and Beca's hands tighten their grip in Chloe's hair before she moves them to grasp at the bed sheets, _already _feeling like she's going to tumble over the edge. "Fuck," she hisses when she feels Chloe's tongue move up further and trace a circle around her clit before drawing it into her mouth, moving her hand up to easily slide two fingers inside of her. She starts thrusting, deep and hard, not taking _anything _slow as she curls and twists her fingers with each thrust. Beca turns her head and presses it into the pillow because she feels like she needs to _scream _because this feels so good, and she feels that heat settle low in her stomach as Chloe adds a third finger, thrusting even harder than before and tracing patterns into Beca's clit with strong strokes.

All that's in her head is white fuzz as Beca feels like she's not _falling _over the edge so much as she's been _thrown _and she comes hard, her heels digging into Chloe's shoulders and her eyes screwing shut as she releases a guttural moan that doesn't stop until the high is finally over. Chloe moves up and kisses Beca, open-mouthed and allowing Beca to taste herself, and Beca's still panting and almost shaking when she decides to return the favor, flipping them over and slamming two fingers into Chloe without any warning, sucking at the pulse point on her neck, their skin sticking together with sweat.

It doesn't take long for Chloe to come, and once she does, Beca slips out of her and collapses, half on top of her and the two of them are panting hard.

"Jesus Christ," Chloe breathes, staring up at the ceiling and licking her lips.

"Yeah," Beca mumbles back, her lips still against Chloe's neck, her eyes starting to slip shut until she realizes—

_I'm in bed with a complete stranger. _

She quickly hops up from the bed, stumbling a little as the blood rushes to her head. "Um, I—oh my God," she stammers, quickly picking up her clothes and shoving on her pants and shirt, already making her way towards the door. Chloe sits up quickly.

"Beca, wait—"

"I have to go. Um, nice meeting you," Beca says quickly, kicking herself internally. She doesn't know what she's doing; all she knows is that her panic switch has flipped on. She's never just hooked up with _anyone _before, and she's still mentally kicking herself because she actually wanted to get to know Chloe by talking to her and maybe taking her out for coffee, not basically take advantage of her for as impersonal as a one-night stand. She feels tears sting at her eyes for absolutely no reason whatsoever as she fumbles with the doorknob and she's out the door, vaguely aware that Chloe's saying something behind her, and shuts it, turning the corner and looking for Jesse, who she spots talking up some leggy blonde who looks too drunk to be standing upright right now. She walks past him, grabbing his arm.

"Yeah, and I— what the—Beca?" he says, stumbling back as she pulls him away and turns toward him, letting go of his arm.

"Nice hickeys," he says, smirking, "So I'm guessing you—"

"Shut up!" she yells, her eyes starting to water.

His face quickly falls. "Beca?" he asks, taking her hand, "Are you okay? What happened?"

"I'm leaving now," she says evenly, pulling her hand away to wipe at the tears forming in her eyes, "Where's my stuff?"

Jesse leads her to the guest room near the entrance, walking in and grabbing her bag. As he hands it to her, he pulls out his phone. "I'll get a taxi for you. Do you want me to come with you?"

"No," she says, shaking her head profusely, "I don't want to ruin your night."

"Ah, it's fine," he says, dialing the number for the taxi company, "I'm not in the mood for partying, anyway."

He takes her hand and leads her outside, where she inhales the cold air deeply at an attempt to get a hold of herself. After Jesse makes the arrangements, he turns to Beca, sitting them down and putting an arm around her shoulder, allowing her to rest her head on his shoulder, and gently rubs circles on her back. "What happened?"

"I slept with Chloe," Beca says almost instantly.

"Okay," Jesse says, even though he probably already knows exactly what happened in that room. "And?"

"I—I just—I don't—"Beca's stammering again and she feels the tears start to come, and Jesse nods.

"We can talk about it whenever you want, Be-caw," he says gently as she starts to cry again. She nods, and they sit in silence like that for the five minutes it takes for the cab to pull up in front of Chloe's house.

As she's stepping inside of the cab, she hears a voice behind them. "Beca!"

Beca turns to see Chloe running toward them, and Jesse, who had opened the door for Beca, quickly ushers her inside. "Thanks for the invite, Chlo," he calls as he steps inside, "Tell Tom that I'm sorry I left so early."

Beca just sits there, refusing to look out the window, as Jesse tells the taxi driver what her address is. As they're pulling away, she allows herself to take one small glance out the window, and Chloe's just standing there, watching them drive off.

Beca could swear she's crying.

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The next morning, both she and Jesse are hungover when they wake up. Beca walks out of her room to see that Jesse's sprawled out on her couch (she would have let him sleep on her bed, but the gentleman that (even drunk) Jesse is, he insisted that he sleeps on the couch). She nudges him awake. "Your flight's leaving in four hours," she says gently, handing him a glass of water and an aspirin, "I'll drive you home so you can get your stuff and we can go to the airport."

"What even happened last night," he mumbles as he throws back the aspirin and chugs the water, "I hate drinking."

Beca's heart clenches at that, and she only smiles a small smile. "No idea, dude," she says. Of course she remembers what happened last night, but telling him what happened last night requires telling him about the _thing _and there's no way she can do that right now.

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She gives him a huge hug goodbye and a kiss on the cheek. "Glad I got to hang out with you last night before you left," she says. Jesse smiles at her.

"I'll see you soon, B," he says, squeezing her hand before he's walking into the terminal.

Beca can tell he remembered most of last night now, and she can't appreciate him staying quiet about it more.

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She walks into work, and her colleague Jessica greets her. "Rough night last night?" she asks from her position stacking various CDs into alphabetical order.

Beca nods. "Terrible." She takes her backpack off and slides into the recording studio, ready to work with whatever comes at her to take her mind off of things. Jessica follows her, her arms full with a box full of CDs.

"Luke got us new talent," she says to Beca, setting the box on a shelf behind her with a small grunt, "She's supposed to be fantastic." She stares down at her watch. "And she's fifteen minutes late."

"Give her a break, Jess," Beca says jokingly, turning to poke her side, "I bet she had just as rough of a night as I did. You never know. It was a Friday night, after all."

"Guess you don't. So where were you last night, anyway? Partying it up?"

Beca freezes a little, unsure of how to answer; her and Jessica are pretty good friends, but not to the extent of her telling Jessica about her sex life. "I guess, yeah. Partying. You know the deal."

"Any awesome hook-ups?" Jessica asks with a wink.

Beca starts to shake her head and she starts to lie. "Of course no—"

She doesn't finish her sentence because Jessica's looking at something behind her shoulder. Jessica waves and smiles. "Hey, I'm Jess! This is Beca, you're going to be working with her and she's going to be mixing and producing your music. Nice to meet you."

Beca turns in her swivel chair, smiling and ready to greet whoever this new talent is, and she almost falls out when she sees who it is. Her heart plummets and her mouth goes dry, and she just stares, open-mouthed.

Standing at the doorway, looking a lot fresher than Beca feels, dressed in black skinny jeans with a long, light blue button-down shirt with cowboy boots, is Chloe Beale.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: WOW! This fic got a lot more reception than I ever thought it would. Thanks to everyone who has followed/favorited/reviewed so far, you're all the best. Thanks again to Brooke for being my beta.**

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**Chapter 2**

Beca's never been one for relationships.

It's not that she doesn't try, or that she doesn't like relationships; they just don't work for her as a general thing. Either she ends up left behind in the dust, or she gets bored and leaves the other behind in the dust (and it's mainly the former). They just don't work.

Just like that one time Tess broke up with her after a year of dating through a text message (almost two years ago) for the sole reason that Beca wasn't good at communicating (Beca still laughs at the irony). Beca accepted the breakup with just an "okay" typed with shaking fingers, Tess angrily responding and saying that Beca would never be good for anything except one-night stands, because "_u suck so bad at communication theres no way anyone would want u for anything more than a good fuck."_

Beca blocked her number after that.

She would never admit it to anyone, but after the breakup, Beca was an unhinged disaster and she was only passively working on getting better afterwards. Tess had meant a lot to her (she had maybe even been the first person Beca ever loved romantically), and she had left Beca with only a text message, mainly out of the blue.

Left in the dust.

It's true, though; Beca's never been one for communication. Maybe it has to do with the fact that she learned from the worst (her dad and her mom were so bad at communication that they just decided to give up and get a divorce…bad communication role models in general, really), or the fact that she's never really felt a need to try and communicate everything she's feeling when she's feeling it, mainly because she doesn't know how. As a result, she fell into the world of music and mixing music, because it was one of the only ways she could get her feelings out.

Beca had refused to believe that she'd ever stoop so low as to having a one-night stand, especially if she was actually interested in the other person; she swore to herself that she would never prove Tess right, even though she heard a few months ago that she had moved to Europe to work with an exchange student program there.

Which is why, now, with Chloe standing in front of her, Beca feels the guilt of the previous night and how she completely went back on her word to herself come rushing at her in a flurry, and she can't even speak because the memories of last night flood her brain and her breath is stuck in her throat.

Chloe's staring at Beca with a bewildered look in her eyes (they're just as blue as Beca remembers them, goddammit), that look quickly disappearing as she clears her throat and tears her glance away from Beca to Jessica, a small smile creating laugh lines as she nods. "I'm Chloe Beale. Nice to meet you," she says to Jessica. She then turns her gaze to Beca, and Beca almost flinches with how cold it is. "Good to see you again, Beca. Glad you got home in one piece."

Beca can almost feel Jessica staring at her with curiosity in her eyes from behind her, and she can only manage to nod once before she turns back to her sound equipment, pretending to fiddle around with the various knobs and levers when the program is currently powered off.

"Do you two know each other?" Jessica asks from behind Beca.

"No," Beca says, while Chloe says "yes" at the exact same time, making Beca wince slightly.

After a long, horrifyingly awkward pause, Jessica starts to make her way out of the studio. "Alright, well, I'll leave you two now," she says, moving past Chloe with a small "excuse me," causing Chloe to move away from the door frame and closer to Beca (this studio's _really _small). "I've got to go get some paperwork done. Luke might swing by to see how things are going. Work your magic, Mitchell!" she calls behind her back as she walks out.

Chloe leans against the table holding all of the equipment, watching Beca fiddle around for a moment before running her fingers through her hair with one hand and saying in a small voice, "The system's off."

Beca feels herself flush before laughing nervously. _You're an idiot, Mitchell_. She stops fiddling and starts fidgeting with her fingers instead, not looking up."I didn't know you sang."

"I didn't know you worked here."

At this, Beca pauses her fidgeting for a moment. _Does that mean she wouldn't have come here if she knew? _"Yeah. I've been working here for about a year now," she says evenly, reaching over for her water bottle to take a sip out of it because her mouth is still dry.

Chloe sighs. "Look, about last night—"

Beca swallows her water quickly to avoid choking on it. "Just forget it happened," she says as fast as she can. She feels terrible, and will probably always feel terrible about it, and she doesn't want to feel worse with Chloe telling her about how it was just a one-night stand and that it wasn't a big deal; she knows very well that she could fall for (or have already fallen for) Chloe Beale, but she can't let herself do that, especially not for some hook-up at a party, even though she knows in the back of her head that Chloe wasn't just a hook-up to her.

She's conscious of the fact that she was just a one-night thing to Chloe, and while that hurts (it hurts like hell), Beca honestly has no one to blame but herself, because she went along with it that night. Beca turns her head and looks at Chloe, her eyes not quite meeting Chloe's bright blue ones yet (they're_so _expressive and Beca's afraid to see what expression they're creating at this moment).

Chloe hesitates, looking like she wants to say something, before she bites her lip (Beca's breath hitches in her throat because _oh my god she's a lip biter_) and nods. "Okay," she says, her voice small again.

"We're both here on business," Beca continues, walking over to turn on the recording system and then turning back to stand, facing Chloe's side, "Just business."

Chloe nods curtly and turns her head towards Beca. Beca meets her eyes and she sees something that looks a lot like—_hurt?_—no, she must be seeing things—and after another pause, Beca makes her way to the door of the studio to shut it, flicking on the "Now Recording" switch so that no one interrupts, and then opens to door to the recording booth, gesturing for Chloe to step inside.

On her way there, Chloe's arm brushes against Beca's, and Beca could swear goosebumps rise where their skin met; she's hit with memories from last night again, skin sliding against skin and lips moving against her ear, and she shivers a little bit, stopping before Chloe notices.

Chloe moves in front of the microphone, looking expectantly at Beca, and it's a little while before Beca manages to completely compose herself before she manages to speak. "Um, just get yourself settled and sing anything for me," she says, her voice quavering a little. "So I can get a feel for your voice."Without waiting for her to respond, Beca quickly shuts the door behind her and plops herself down on her chair, expelling a deep breath that she hadn't been aware she was holding, rubbing her eyes wearily. "Fuck," she says under her breath, knowing Chloe can't see her through the tinted, one-sided glass.

_Get yourself together, Mitchell._

She takes a deep breath, leans over and presses the mic button. "Okay, whenever you're ready," she says, her voice still shaking a little.

She sees Chloe nod through the one-sided glass and start to fiddle with the ring on her thumb, looking down and closing her eyes for a moment before looking back up and taking a deep breath of her own before she starts singing.

_Close your eyes,  
Give me your hand, darling_

Beca's breath is stuck in her throat again_. Jesus, she can sing._

_Do you feel my heart beating?  
Do you understand?_

Beca notices that Chloe sings while using her hands; it sounds like it should be cheesy, but it isn't. It makes Beca feel like she can actually _see_ the music when Chloe sings, and she's still not quite breathing yet.

_Do you feel the same—_

And then the sound cuts out with a small zapping noise.

"Fuck!" Beca says loudly, completely startled. Of _course_ their shitty mic system decides to shut off right then. Chloe stops singing after she hears the noise, and she stands there, looking extremely confused.

Beca walks over and opens the door, walking into the small space. "Power cut out," she mutters, standing in front of the mic (and Chloe) and tugging on the various wires at a feeble attempt at fixing it.

"Anything I can do to help?" Chloe asks.

Beca shakes her head, not really knowing what she's doing, but continuing to plug and unplug various cords anyway.

She then sees Chloe move around the mic so she's standing next to Beca, standing _really close_ to her (the recording booth's small, sure, but there's enough room for Chloe to not have to stand that close) and she raises her hand up, brushing against Beca's, and run her fingers along the various wires. "Looks complicated," she says, and Beca's not sure if she's talking to her or herself.

"It's not complicated so much as it's just a piece of shit," Beca says, making Chloe laugh softly. Beca can't help the smile that appears on her face after hearing it, and she lowers her hand at the same time Chloe does, making their hands brush again, and Beca clears her throat, attempting at straightening her face.

There's a short silence before Beca decides that the mic is broken and there's nothing she can do about it. Sighing, she turns towards the door to the booth.

"I'm just going to go talk to Luke and see if we can do anything about this. You don't have to come," she adds when she realizes that Chloe's following her.

Chloe shrugs. "I don't have anything to do here, anyways. Luke's the manager, right?"

"Yeah." Beca opens the door after switching the "Now Recording" sign off, and holds it open for Chloe, not missing the smile she gives her in thanks. It's the same smile she smiled at her when they first met, and Beca feels her hands go clammy again. "I told him we needed to get that mic fixed _ages_ ago back when we had Ben Howard recording here—"

"Wait," Chloe interrupts, her hand sliding over Beca's forearm and tugging her to a halt, "Ben Howard recorded here? As in, that booth I was _just_ standing in?"

Beca's mouth goes dry again as she feels Chloe's hand on her arm and she has to swallow the nervous lump in her throat before she manages to speak again. "Yeah," she says, her voice tinged with a slight rasp, "He's a great guy."

Chloe slowly releases her grasp on Beca's arm, her mouth slightly open. "What other big names have you recorded for?"

Inhaling silently through her nose at an attempt to compose herself, Beca starts walking again, turning a corner to walk up the stairs to Luke's office. "Honestly, not many. We're fairly new. I'm surprised you even found out about us, actually; we produce enough music to do well, but we're not about to start producing music for, like, Taylor Swift or someone like that any time soon."

Before Chloe can respond, Beca walks into Luke's office space.

Luke mainly handles the paperwork and the business side of things, while Beca's the unofficial handler of the actual musical part of producing. She doesn't mind it being unofficial, though; she has fun at work, and she makes more than enough money to get by.

"Luke," she says. He looks up from whatever he was typing on his laptop and shifts his headphones so that one ear isn't covered.

"Yeah?" he says in his thick British accent.

"So, I've got my fri—Chloe Beale here, the new talent that you recruited," she says, hesitating when she's about to say 'friend'. Beca barely even knows her, but there's something about Chloe that makes her feel like she does. About the way she talks to her and acts around her.

Beca tugs at the hem of her shirt to stop herself from thinking too much while Chloe's standing _right there_. "We were about to record and then the mic blew out. Thought you got it fixed?"

"Ah, shit," Luke sighs, taking off his headphones fully and picking up his phone, "I meant to call tech about that weeks ago, but I thought it fixed itself. Nice to meet you, finally, Chloe," he says, getting up and walking over to shake hands with her, "Your sample was incredible. I'm excited to see your potential grow here."

"Thanks," Chloe says brightly.

"Sorry, Becky," Luke says, dialing a number on his phone.

Beca sighs. "It's Bec—"

Luke then starts talking to whoever else is on the line, and Beca leans against the wall, waiting, until he hangs up.

"Sorry, but it looks like they can't fix it today," he says to Beca, then turning to Chloe, "I'm sorry about this. Can we maybe come back to this tomorrow?"

"That's totally fine," Chloe says. "I'm just glad you guys decided to take me in."

"Great," Luke says, smiling briefly before sitting back down at his desk, "See you tomorrow."

Beca glances at Chloe, who chooses that exact moment to glance at Beca, and the two of them stay there like that for a moment before Beca breaks eye contact and walks out the door.

"See you tomorrow, then," she says, quickly going down the stairs, ready to go back home; she had nothing on her agenda today, and she wants nothing more than to just relax and get rid of her persistent hangover, and she wants to get away from Chloe because the things that Chloe makes her feel is driving her _insane_ and she needs time to think. She walks into the studio and picks up her backpack and jacket, and starts to make her way outside.

"Beca, wait," she hears Chloe call from behind her. Beca closes her eyes for a moment before turning around.

Chloe walks up to her, hesitating a bit. "Look, I—we—" she sighs. "I'd like to be friends with you, Beca. I want to get to know you more."

"I—o-_kay_," Beca says awkwardly, not sure of what to do with herself.

"Could you be any less enthusiastic?" Chloe deadpans.

"Sure. Friends." Beca feels ridiculous doing it, but she holds out a hand for Chloe to shake, but then Chloe's stepping closer to her and Beca can practically feel her heart pounding out of her chest because _Jesus Christ is she about to kiss me again_?, but then she wraps her arms around Beca, tugging her into a tight embrace. She smells like peaches and fresh air (if that's even a thing) and Beca can't even describe the rush of electricity going through her body right now. As if the subtle touches today weren't enough, Chloe Beale's entire _body_ is pressed up against Beca and she's breathless for the tenth time in the half hour she's spent with Chloe.

"I'm a hugger," Chloe says, her voice suddenly full of energy. Beca isn't sure of what to do, so she sort of pats Chloe on the back and waits for her to pull away. Chloe pulls back after a while, smiling. "Can I have your number?" she asks, reaching into her pocket and unlocking her phone, "I got lost when I tried to get here today and I had to ask this really mean gas station attendant where this place was."

Beca's well aware that the "Still In Public, Inc." studio is not difficult to find by any stretch of the imagination, but she decides to play along with Chloe, because she _may or may not_ want her number, too.

They switch phones, Chloe taking a ridiculous selfie through the front camera on Beca's phone and setting it as her contact picture, and switch back soon after.

"See you tomorrow?" Chloe asks, tucking her phone back into her pocket.

"Tomorrow," Beca agrees, giving Chloe a genuine smile.

She's barely a block away from the studio on her way home (it's about ten blocks away from the studio, but she needed the time and fresh air to think) when her phone vibrates in her pocket. She pulls it out and unlocks it, a smile stretching across her face when she sees that Chloe's already texted her.

_**Hey you :)**_


	3. Chapter 3

"I'm so screwed."

It's 2AM and Beca's been on the phone with Jesse since 11PM. She had tried to spend the day attempting to clear her thoughts, but when she realized that Chloe Beale just wouldn't go away, she gave up.

It doesn't help that she had been texting Chloe non-stop since they had first exchanged numbers that day (Beca had no idea small talk could actually be fun, but she quickly learned that Chloe Beale could make any topic of conversation fun). Whenever there was a lull in conversation where there were half-hour gaps between texts, Beca would find herself texting Chloe "Hi," and that eventually became their "thing;" texting each other "hi" whenever there was a pause (Beca can't believe she has a "thing" like that with someone, because stuff like that has always made her feel all mushy inside, and not in a good way, but for some unfathomable reason, this makes her smile).

After about an hour of idle chat with Jesse about his time in San Francisco and helping out his uncle with his new movie production company (he put Jesse in charge of helping out with scoring movies, something he's wanted to do since grade eight), she ended up going on a two-hour long rant about Chloe, ranging from topics like how _ridiculous_ it was that she was their new talent, to how good she smelled when she hugged Beca (a comment that had Jesse hysterically laughing for a solid five minutes).

She hears a groan on the other end and can practically see Jesse rolling his eyes.

"B, this is the fifth time you've said that in the past half hour."

Beca throws her free hand up in frustration. "That's because it's true!"

"You've said it so many times and you haven't even bothered telling me why you're screwed. I don't see what the big problem is-"

Beca curls her hand into a fist. "The problem is that I-my-the-" she's stammering, and she just ends up giving up because she knows she can't get her emotions out by putting it into words, like always, and it's frustrating her to no ends. She flops down on the couch, rubbing her temple at an attempt at collecting herself.

Jesse sighs."Look, it's evident that you have feelings for her-"

"What?!" Beca splutters, feeling herself turning red, "I don't have feelings for her."

"Oh my g-Beca Mitchell, you did _not_ just say you don't have feelings for Chloe Beale after spending almost three hours on the phone with me and depriving me of sleep because you can't stop talking about her."

Beca sighs, and sinks into the couch cushions even further. "Jesse, I can't have feelings for her."

"Why not? Is there some unspoken rule that dictates that moody brunettes named Beca can't date or have feelings for perky gingers named Chloe?"

"No. Because the feelings wouldn't be mutual. Also, you're an idiot. And I'm not moody," she adds.

"I'm an educated idiot. And yes, you are. Look at you right now; you're a mess. You've been talking to me on the phone for three hours not knowing what you want to do with your feelings for her—"

"I don't have feelings for her."

"Whatever. First you're all, '_she smells like_ _peaches and she's the prettiest girl I ever set my eyes on—'"_

Beca sits up straight. "I don't sound like that!"

"Can you please shut up and let me talk?" Beca sighs and lies back down on the couch. "Next thing I know, you're on this rant about how stupid Luke was for not consulting you about the new hire, even though you aren't even officially a part of management, and you're talking about how stupid the odds are that Chloe Beale is your new talent because you hooked up with her that night, even though from what I've heard, she doesn't seem to think it was that big of a deal—"

"That's exactly what my problem is, Jesse! She doesn't think it was that big of a deal!"

"And _why_, exactly, is that a problem if you 'don't have feelings for her'? Are you sure you don't have the slightest _hint_ of romantic feelings for her?"

Beca's at a loss for words again, and that's the only confirmation that Jesse needs.

"And there's the answer to that question, Beca," he says gently.

Beca feels tears start to sting her eyes a little and attempts at clearing her thoughts by shaking her head and sighs. "I was just a hook-up, Jesse," she says, her voice starting to shake. "Just another willing candidate who was an easy fuck at a party."

"Come on. You don't know that for sure. How do you know she's not feeling the exact same way you are right now?"

"Have you even seen her, Jesse? There's no way someone like Chloe could feel anything for someone like me."

"I saw her. Have you ever seen you? Come on, Beca, you were just as pretty as she was that night. And what do you mean, 'someone like you?'"

"I don't even know if I'm over Tess, yet. I'm a mess. And that wasn't supposed to rhyme," she says stupidly, screwing her eyes shut in embarrassment.

"You don't know if you're over _Tess_, or over the things Tess said to you? Because I'd say it's the latter. And also, Chloe doesn't know about your past."

Another long pause. Beca shakes her head, smiling slightly. "Goddammit, Jesse Swanson," she mutters, "Why do you always have to be right?"

Jesse chuckles. "Movie geek, remember? I've seen it all, heard it all, and learned it all."

"My life isn't a movie, though."

"Movies are based on real life a lot of the time."

Beca thinks about arguing, but realizes that it's almost 3AM and it would most likely go in circles. "Go to bed, Jesse. I'm sorry for keeping you up this late."

"It's okay. You owe me a movie night once I get back, though," he says.

It takes a while for Beca to respond, because she can't even begin to describe how much she hates movies, and Jesse doesn't just watch one movie on movie nights, but Jesse's stayed up with her for three hours while she talks and she realizes just how grateful she is for him."Fine."

"Fine." Jesse pauses. "Love you, loser."

"Love you, too, I guess."

Jesse snorts."You guess. Look, just talk to Chloe, alright? Talking goes a long way, even though you kind of suck at it."

Beca scoffs. "Gee, thanks, Jesse. You do great things to my ego."

"I swear I _just_ told you that you looked as hot as Chloe Beale did at that party."

"Whatever. Talk to her and say what?"

"Dunno.'Hey, you were good in bed that night, let's go out.'"

Beca's jaw drops open, and her face goes bright red again. "Oh my god."

"Just kidding. Hey, was she actually good in bed, or-"

"_Goodnight, Jesse!_" Beca shouts into the phone before abruptly hanging up and tossing it on to her nightstand, flicking off the lamp and throwing her bedsheets over herself.

She wants to throw the lamp at a wall when she realizes that she can't close her eyes and sleep without thinking of Chloe before drifting off, and eventually decides to just let it happen.

* * *

The next morning, Beca is unbelievably tired when she walks in to work, and she nods a quick hello to Jessica before walking straight towards the recording studio, not bothering to see who else is working today; she's not in any mood to deal with Stacie's latest story about her latest flavor of the month, and she finds herself glad that there are actually a fair amount of people who work here part-time and not full-time so she doesn't have to deal with the same person every day.

Beca's fully prepared to snap at anyone who gets on her nerves in the slightest today.

She's not, however, prepared to be almost knocked down with the force that is Chloe Beale's "hello" hug.

"Jesus!" she shouts, grabbing on to the nearest desk to steady herself before she falls.

"Close enough," Chloe breathes, giggling as she pulls back. "Sorry for startling you. It's just good to see you again."

"You talked to me yesterday," Beca huffs, her mood _already_ lightening up considerably as she almost feels Chloe's seemingly endless energy transfer over to her. _God, what is happening to me? _

"Yeah, but there's a difference between texting and actually talking in person," Chloe says, pulling her hair back and tying it into a messy bun, "I try to save actual conversations for face-to-face moments."

"Which explains why we were talking about oranges yesterday," Beca says with a slight chuckle, setting down her bag, pulling out a water bottle, and leaning against the table to face Chloe. "I'll be honest with you; during the first few text conversations, I thought you legitimately questioned the difference between chipmunks and squirrels on a daily basis."

"How do you know I don't do that?" Chloe says with a wink, making Beca blush slightly.

Beca clears her throat. "True. You're sort of unpredictable, I find." Beca pauses, taking a sip out of the bottle before gesturing to the recording booth and heading over to the sound table. "Luke texted me last night telling me maintenance finally got around to fixing the mic system. I think we're good to go."

Chloe nods and starts walking over to open the door to the booth before turning back to Beca with a mischievous smile on her face.

"What?" Beca asks, powering on the system and walking over to flick the "Now Recording" switch on, turning her head to the left to face Chloe.

"You should test it out before I do. I want to hear you sing."

Beca shakes her head, smiling as she walks back to the sound table and sits in front of it. "I don't even sing, so—"

"Oh, come on," Chloe says, reaching over and tugging on her arm at an attempt to pull her up, "Everyone sings. Besides, I don't even know how to properly sing into this mic system. I'm a newbie. You're a pro. Please?" Chloe's eyes are pleading, and Beca feels like she's going to pass out _again _because _Chloe Beale is giving you the puppy dog look Beca Mitchell you don't fall for pouting or puppy dog looks don't do it-_

"Yeah, sure," Beca says, sighing internally as she rises from her seat, Chloe's hand still on her arm. "What do you even want me to sing?"

"Anything, really. I just, y'know, 'want to get a feel for your voice,'" she says, grinning wide.

"Are you mocking me, Chloe Beale?" Beca says, feigning disgust and putting a hand over her heart.

"Maybe. You're kind of cute when you're offended," Chloe adds, taking her hand off Beca's arm (she doesn't "take it off" so much as sliding her hand slowly down the length of Beca's arm and brushing her fingers with Beca's before they lose contact). "Sing whatever's on the playlist you have. I'm sure you have one."

Beca, her arm still tingling from Chloe's touch, nods slowly and turns to reach over and inserts one of her default backing track CDs for various covers that people have recorded in here. "Come in with me, then," she says after pressing "play" and "speakerphone" on the CD so that the two of them can hear the music. "The glass there is one-sided and I don't want to not know if you're laughing at me or not."

Chloe holds open the door and motions for Beca to step inside the booth. "Sure. At least you know how I felt yesterday in there."

Beca walks in, laughing a little. "I'll have you know that I am a perfectly respectable producer who doesn't do that to her talent."

She's horrified to find that the music that's playing is the backing tracks to "No Diggity" by Dr. Dre. "Oh my god," she says under her breath, turning around to walk out, "I'm going to go change the song—"

"Don't you dare, Beca Mitchell," Chloe says over the music, pulling Beca's hand and then placing her hand firmly on her shoulders from behind once Beca is in front of the mic. She then leans forward. "Sing it for me," she says into Beca's ear.

Beca's rolling her eyes on the outside, but inside, she feels as if she might actually punch the wall next to her because she's never felt these many emotions all at once before.

She allows the intro of the song to end before she takes a deep breath and starts _rapping. _

_It's going down, fade to Blackstreet  
The homies got RB, collab' creations  
Bump like Acne, no doubt I put it down  
Never slouch  
As long as my credit could vouch  
A dog couldn't catch me ass out_

Chloe moves over so she's standing next to Beca, and facing her, and Beca can see that she's smiling wide, bobbing her head to the beat of the music, rapping along, and Beca couldn't feel any more ridiculous once she gets to the chorus.

_Shorty get down, good lord  
Baby got 'em open all over town  
Strictly biz she don't play around  
Cover much ground  
Got game by the pound._

Chloe's now swaying her hips, raising her arms up in the air and _dancing. _Beca feels a rush of heat go through her body as she watches her move, and she's struggling to keep her focus on singing.

_Getting' paid is her forte  
Each and every day  
True player way_

Beca could swear that Chloe's getting closer to her, and she stops singing abruptly. "Okay, if Luke catches me screwing around, he's going to yell at me. We should probably start actually recording now."

Chloe puts her arms down, still smiling. "Okay."

Beca maneuvers herself around the mic and walks toward the door, ready to possibly throw something and start screaming once she gets to the other side of the glass, when she hears Chloe's voice behind her above the music.

"What are you doing after work?"

Beca continues walking, moving over to the sound table to switch off the music before walking back to the door of the booth. "Nothing, as far as I know. Why?"

"I was wondering if you wanted to maybe go for coffee or something. Since you seem to think that I can't really talk about anything other than things of seemingly no importance."

Beca laughs a little. "I was kidding about that."

"Is that a no? Do I not have to prove my above-average conversation-making skills?"

It takes Beca a while to respond, mainly because her head is still spinning from what just happened in that recording booth (_it's just from the loud music, Beca. It has to be. Calm yourself down.), _but she finally nods. "It's a yes. There's a little café around the corner from here, and it's independently owned by this couple who helped us get our start here. Want to go there?"

"Yes!"

Beca smiles, closes the door, and goes to sink down into the chair, significantly calmer than she was about thirty seconds ago. She places both her elbows on the table, propping her chin up on her hands, and observes as Chloe does something that looks like a vocal exercise, smiling when she starts jumping up and down. Beca leans over and presses the "open mic" button. "Ready to go, Adele?"

"Oh, shut up," Chloe says, giggling. "Ready."

Beca grins. "Alright. Sing for me."

She leans back in her seat, allowing Chloe to sing her own lyrics with her gorgeous voice while thinking of ways to add different tracks in the background.

_Maybe screaming isn't necessary, after all._

* * *

"Ugh, God, I am _so _ready to get some tea or something for my throat right now," Chloe says, nodding to Beca in thanks when Beca hands her a water bottle. "I haven't sung like that in forever."

They're on their way to the Liberty Café, Chloe _still _a ball of energy after a tiring, three-hour-long recording session (Beca was sitting at the recording table the whole time and _she _felt exhausted), and Beca smirks. "Get used to it, Beale," she says, "I work my clients hard." She pauses a little, almost stumbling, when she realizes what she just said, and picks up her pace, hoping Chloe didn't notice.

_Oh my god what are you even talking about Beca Mitchell stop talking __**right now-**_

"I'm sure you do. " Chloe stops talking, and Beca turns a little to see that Chloe's blushing (which is good, because Beca's pretty sure she's blushing at least twice as hard).

"Anyways," Beca says, clearing her throat a little and opening the door to the café for Chloe, "I think you'll really like this place."

"Thanks," Chloe says when Beca opens the door for her, "And good. I'm sure whatever you like is fantastic."

Beca almost says something ridiculously corny along the lines of, "That makes sense, because I like you," but she manages to stop herself. She sits them down at her usual spot, and Thomas, one of the managers, comes up to her with a big smile on his face.

Thomas Larkin is a man in his mid 60s who has been happily married to the co-owner of the café, Ester, for almost twenty years now, and they helped the "Still In Public, Inc." studio get its start by investing in them when Luke began the production company (mainly because Luke is Thomas' grandson). He had worked with Beca at a small studio he had owned on the campus of the university, and had recruited her once he had gotten the company started.

Beca comes here almost every day after work and sits at this spot, and Thomas seems surprised to see that she's not alone like she usually is.

"Hey there, Beca!" he says, pulling out his little notebook, "The usual for you, I'm assuming?"

Beca smiles at him, nodding. "Yeah, the usual."

Thomas nods, writing down Beca's usual order (caramel macchiato with extra caramel)."And for this pretty young lady here?"

Chloe lets out a soft giggle, making Beca turn her attention from Thomas to Chloe in an instant. "I've never been here before. Would it be pretentious to tell you to surprise me?"

"Not at all," Thomas says, tucking the notebook back into his little apron, "Caramel macchiato for this lady and a surprise for this one, coming up." He salutes, making Chloe giggle again, and walks off to the counter.

"I like him," she says, turning back to Beca.

"He's pretty cool," Beca says, "He's the one who got me where I am right now, so I've got a bit of bias towards him, though. He's Luke's granddad."

"Luke? As in your manager? Huh," Chloe remarks thoughtfully.

"Why?" Beca says, a slightly teasing tone to her voice, "Should I be asking Tommy if he can set you up with Luke?"

Beca has to admit she's slightly relieved when Chloe lets out a short bark of laughter. "No."

Thomas comes back with their orders, placing Beca's drink in front of her and then doing the same with Chloe's. "This is a peppermint mocha," he states, "Most cafes only have them around Christmas time, but we do things differently around here."

"Thanks, Thomas!" Chloe says, smiling up at him. He smiles back, the corners of his eyes crinkling, and walks back to his spot behind the counter. Chloe takes a meek sip of her drink, her eyes brightening afterwards. Beca can't help but smile at the sight; Chloe, with her hair still tied up in that messy bun, her nose a little red from the slight chill outside, drinking a peppermint mocha. How could _anyone _help it, really?

"This is _amazing," _she says, putting it down after blowing on it lightly at an attempt to cool it down.

"I bet. Thomas is great. Anyways, what were you saying? About being set up with Luke?" Beca says jokingly.

"Oh, shut up," Chloe says, reaching over the small table and nudging Beca's arm, "I don't—" she pauses, suddenly looking very awkward, and takes another sip of her drink.

"You don't what?" Beca knows she's probably being very nosy, but she's never really seen Chloe look _nervous _before.

Chloe shakes her head, smiling a weak smile, before looking back up to meet Beca's eyes. "I've had a very fickle past in the relationships area of my life."

"Oh?" Beca leans back in her chair a little, running her finger along the edge of her mug. "Like?"

"What is this, 20 questions with Chloe Beale day or something?" Chloe chuckles, and shakes her head again. "It's really not a big deal anymore, but I got my heart broken a little while ago. I had been dating this guy for about two years before he decided to take a few shots too many and hooked up with some trashy girl at a party that I wasn't at."

"Wow," Beca says, feeling genuinely sorry for Chloe. She takes another sip of her coffee and shrugs. "His loss, I guess."

Chloe smiles. "Yeah, I guess. Since then, I've mainly been sticking to hook-ups and friends with benefits. At least until the right one comes along. It's easier. Less messy."

Beca's heart drops at this single statement. It's right then when she realizes that she really _was _just a hook-up to Chloe. Beca had sworn that every small touch between them in the two days they had spent together had meant more than it really was, but she's realizing now how completely and utterly _stupid _she was for thinking so.

"Great," she finally manages to choke out, pretending to look at her watch for a moment before looking back at Chloe. She can't be here any longer, or she might start crying, and there is no way in _hell _Beca is crying in public, or in front of Chloe Beale, at that.

"I have to go. Stuff to do," she mumbles, taking a final gulp from her coffee before standing abruptly. "I'll see you later."

"Beca?" Chloe stands up with her, an extremely confused look on her face. Beca starts to walk out, and is aware that Chloe is following close behind her.

"Beca, what's going on?"

Confusion. That really hurts Beca. She knows Chloe doesn't mean to do it (she figures that Chloe Beale couldn't hurt a fly if her life depended on it), but the fact that Chloe doesn't quite seem to get what's wrong with Beca hurts her in this irrational, _stupid _way.

"Was it all meaningless to you?" Beca blurts out, turning towards Chloe and ignoring the stinging feeling in her eyes and the lump in her throat.

Chloe walks over to Beca, placing a hand on her arm. "Was _what _meaningless to me? Beca, you're _really _confusing me. What's going on?"

Beca shrugs Chloe off. "Nothing. I just—I have to go, okay?"

Chloe steps back, that look of bewilderment and slight hurt still on her face. "Okay."

Without another word, Beca turns around and speedwalks around the corner, and back to her apartment, walking as fast as she possibly can.

The moment she steps inside her apartment, she picks up her phone and dials Jesse's number.

Jesse must be working or something, because his voicemail comes up after a few rings. "Jesse," she says, tears starting to well in her eyes, "You were wrong. Call me."

She ends the call, and looks at her phone screen to see that there's a new text message. Hoping to god that it isn't who she thinks it is, she opens the message, and falls back on to her couch when it _is _who she thinks it is. It's Chloe, and Beca expels a breath, wiping at the tears forming in her eyes. It's a simple message, really; one that shouldn't be making Beca feel like she wants to curl up in a corner of her small apartment and cry all day.

**Hi. **

She curls up on her couch and cries anyways.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Short chapter. I'm just setting up the next scene, so this is more of a filler. Thanks to everyone who has followed/favorited/reviewed so far! **

* * *

Beca hasn't responded to the text Chloe had sent her that night, and it's been two days since she received it. Two days, fourteen hours, and twenty-two minutes, to be exact. Not like Beca's keeping track or anything.

She hasn't really talked to Jesse much, either, because their phone conversation that same night had ended with Jesse telling Beca she was overthinking _way_ too much, and Beca had told him off before hanging up on him and storming off to bed.

For the past two days, Beca has been immersing herself in producing and remixing music, refusing to let anyone in to her recording booth (not even Jessica, whom Beca is never annoyed at, and seems to be well aware that she's upset about something) unless absolutely necessary, completely ignoring anyone who tried to make casual conversation with her, and also refusing to touch the tracks her and Chloe had recorded that day, even though Luke told her he needed them soon.

The only person she's really ever talked to has been Luke, and their conversations were always business-related (Luke would be lost without her, she figures). She busies herself as much as she can to keep herself from thinking about Chloe, or Chloe's eyes, or Chloe's hair, or Chloe's lips, doing pointless, time-consuming things like arranging the huge array of CDs in the recording booth into chronological order, before realizing that she can't possibly remember the exact dates of when they had been made and starts to rearrange them again, this time into alphabetical order.

She's halfway through the "M" section when she hears a light knock on the door. "Busy," she deadpans, stacking a CD and not bothering to look over at who's at the door.

"I'm pretty sure you can spare about two minutes from the super fun activity of stacking CDs."

Beca stops midway from stacking another CD when she realizes who's at the door and she purses her lips a little before setting it down on the pile and turning around in her chair.

Chloe's standing there, leaning against the door frame and wearing this infuriatingly adorable outfit of an oversized sweater and tights and holding a tray of coffee-Beca recognizes the cups as cups from the Liberty Café-looking a little pale and apprehensive as she hovers near the entrance. She bites her lip before looking down at her feet.

Beca sighs. "What are you doing here, Chloe? You're not due to record here for another three days."

Chloe looks up with a slightly defiant look on her face. "What, so I can't bring a friend coffee at her work?" she asks, setting the tray down on the desk next to the sound table. "I got your favorite. Caramel macchiato with extra caramel."

There's a lump back in Beca's throat as she looks at Chloe, and back at the coffee. "How did you-"

"Thomas told me," Chloe admits, playing with her thumb ring and taking a step closer to Beca. "You never responded to my text."

Internally, Beca winces, and looks down at her feet. "Didn't know how to respond," she mumbles pathetically, looking up at Chloe to meet her eyes, "Well, I did, but I felt kind of embarrassed about flipping out on you that day."

Chloe just stares, her light blue eyes piercing through Beca's darker ones. "Beca, if it was about that night at the party-"

Beca flushes instantly, words bubbling up again. She can't hear about how big of a mistake it was. Not now, not ever. She knows she'll have to let Chloe know she knows instead of having Chloe tell her herself. "It was just a hook-up," she states, more to herself than Chloe, "Didn't mean anything."

Chloe's eyebrows knit together, and Beca's absolutely sure that she's about to say exactly what Beca's been dreading, but she looks back down at her hands. "Okay," she says quietly.

"That's it? 'Okay?'" Beca says, standing up. Chloe glances up at Beca for a moment, and Beca could _swear_ she sees that familiar flash of something that looks like hurt, but it's gone almost as soon as it came, and Chloe's smiling a close-lipped smile.

"Yeah. Okay. Are we friends again, then?"

"Again?" Beca asks, reaching over to take the coffee cup and taking a sip out of it, "mmm"ing her approval. "Were we ever not?"

"Are you just saying that because I got you coffee?" Chloe asks, the playful tone back in her voice as she watches Beca drink.

"You'll never know," Beca says with a smirk. It's almost uncanny how Chloe can manage to make an uncomfortable situation into one that feels like they're _almost _back to normal, _almost _because Beca knows she probably won't ever be able to stop thinking about what happened that night.

"Jerk," Chloe says, chuckling and leaning on the table. "When are you off work today?"

"I actually don't really follow a schedule here," Beca says, standing up. "I just produce music whenever I can, and I just have to have it all in by the deadline Luke gives me."

"Sounds like a lax job."

"It is. Speaking of," Beca says, rising from her seat and making her way around Chloe to get to the door, "He actually asked me to come talk to him about half an hour ago, and I forgot. Oops. I'll be right back, okay?"

"Okay. Beca—" Chloe reaches over to touch her hand to Beca's arm and stops her. "Are we good?"

"What do you mean?"

Chloe does that thing where she runs her hand down the length of Beca's arm again before returning it to her side, and Beca's back to the state of wanting to punch a wall to release her sexual frustrations before Chloe starts to talk again.

"I don't know. I'm being stupid," Chloe says, shaking her head and smiling again, crossing her arms. "I'm actually going to go meet up with a friend of mine. I just wanted to stop by and say hi."

"You're not being stupid," Beca says, reaching out to place her hand on Chloe's forearm and smiling a little, "I'm glad you did."

Chloe looks down at the hand on her arm and loosens her arms, causing Beca's hand to slip down into Chloe's. She gives Beca's fingers a slight squeeze before letting go. "Are you free tonight? I mean, assuming that you wanted to keep hanging out—"

"I'm free tonight," Beca interrupts, grinning.

"Great. I'll text you, then."

Before Beca can even react, Chloe pulls her into a tight hug, wrapping her arms around Beca's waist. It should feel ridiculous, considering their height difference, but after the initial surprise, Beca feels the warmth radiating from Chloe's body and before she knows it, she's smiling hard as she hugs her back.

"I missed you," Beca blurts out, kicking herself internally. _I missed you. _Beca's screwing her eyes shut as she hugs Chloe in embarrassment, glad she can't see how flustered she looks right now. It's not like she can take it back, either; hasn't she spent the past two days organizing and reorganizing her CDs just because she was trying to take her mind off of Chloe?

There's a bit of a pause, and Beca's holding her breath, before Chloe pulls back, her hands resting lightly on Beca's waist. "I missed you too. Really."

Beca finds her eyes flicking back from Chloe's eyes back down to her lips, and she just _knows _how badly she wants to kiss her. It would be easy, really; all it would take would be tilting her head slightly to the right and leaning forward to close the small gap between their lips and caressing Chloe's cheek before moving her hand down to her neck, and then down to her waist—

_Stop it. _

Beca steps back from Chloe's hold, smiling nervously. "I'll see you tonight, then. We can figure out what we'll do later on today."

She knows she's probably doing that thing Jesse told her she was doing and _completely _overanalyzing this, but she could swear that Chloe's eyes seem to flit up from where Beca's lips are, and Beca smiles at Chloe, deciding to walk out of the recording booth and up to Luke's office before she overanalyzes anything else.

Once she gets there, Luke takes off the giant headphones on his head and nods up at her. "Becky."

Beca sighs, and rolls her eyes for a moment before looking back at him. She figures there's really no point in correcting him at this point, since they've known each other for almost a year and he _still _can't seem to grasp the concept of her name not being Becky. "What's up?"

Luke stands up and walks around his desk, placing himself in front of Beca. "You've been in this since the day we started, and you've handled pretty much all of the producing aspect of this company. So, about an hour ago, I named you the official co-manager of Still In Public, Inc. Congratulations," he says, smirking and holding out his hand.

Beca's jaw drops open. She had never really thought about the co-manager position before, mainly because she felt like she was already an impromptu co-manager when it came to the music, but now that she has officially been _named _as the co-manager, she is dumbstruck."Wait—what?" Shaking her head to clear it, she takes Luke's hand and shakes it briefly. "Wow, um—thanks, Luke. I really appreciate it."

"I was thinking that everyone goes to the club tonight so I can make the announcement and we can all celebrate," Luke says, sitting back down at his desk. "First drinks on me. Let everyone know, will you?"

"Yeah, for sure," Beca says, grinning wide. Before she turns to leave, she gets a sudden thought in her head. "Hey—can I bring a guest tonight?"

"It's a night out dedicated to you. I'd say you're perfectly allowed," Luke says. He then smiles. "Let me guess. You're bringing that redhead, aren't you?"

Beca's eyes widen a little, and she's stammering again. "Wh—how did you—"

"My granddad told me about you two at the café the other day," Luke states, typing something on his laptop, "Not to mention that the amount of sexual tension while you two were in my office made me feel like I wanted to throw my laptop out of the window."

Beca snorts. "Yeah, how do you think I feel?" she mutters. "What did Thomas say? About us?"

Luke shrugs, leaning back in his chair and sliding his headphones over his ears, "I don't see why it matters," he says, "But I might fire you if you don't make a move on her tonight. I hate sexual tension, especially when I'm not involved."

This makes Beca laugh again, and she shakes her head. "I'll see you later tonight, Luke," she says, walking out of his office and out the door.

"See you, Becky."

On her way back home, she pulls out her phone to text Chloe.

**Hey. I have something for us to do tonight. I just got promoted to co-manager and Luke says we should go out to the club to celebrate. First drinks on him.**

She hits "send," and almost thirty seconds later, there's a response.

**Spending time with you AND free drinks? Yes please! :)**

Beca laughs, and she's smiling the whole way home, until she gets there and realizes that they're just friends and will probably stay friends.

"Whatever," she mutters to herself, throwing her bag down on the couch before walking into her room and collapsing on her bed. She figures that staying friends with Chloe Beale and going insane is better than not being friends with her at all (and still going insane).


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: This chapter is done in Chloe's POV to A. Give a good understanding of just what she's thinking and B. To accommodate for the events in this chapter. Let me know what you think! Thanks to everyone who has followed/favorited/reviewed so far, as always, and thanks again to Brooke for being my beta.**

* * *

Chloe's trying really hard to neglect the fact that this entire situation makes her feel like she's running around in circles.

It could have been as easy as just _not _making a move on Beca that night—but the alcohol had gotten the best of her and released the worst of Chloe Beale, which was complete and utter lack of any filter or self-control laced with a ludicrously high sex drive.

She had no idea what had possessed her to kiss Beca that night, let alone take her to her _bedroom, _but the attraction had definitely been there, and any thoughts of "taking things slow" had evidently been tossed out the window.

Chloe regrets nothing more than that night, but not for the reasons one would probably think she would regret them for. She doesn't necessarily regret hooking up with Beca (because _god, _that was an incredible night), but she regrets that their thing—whatever their _thing _is—started off that way. After a sleepless night with only Beca in her thoughts, she figured that after that night, she would never see her again, but then Beca swivels around in her chair and everything is turned on its head (because Chloe Beale's life refuses to ever be simple).

Even then, Chloe hoped that they ended up having nothing in common, or that Beca's personality was actually _terrible, _or that there wasn't actually any attraction after the alcohol had worn off (but she doesn't really know who she's kidding, because she hadn't gone an hour after that night without thinking about Beca), but none of that actually happened. If it was even considered as possible, Chloe felt as if she was falling even harder for Beca, and she had no idea how to stop.

It's the little things, really; the way Beca purses her lips when she was frustrated with how a track sounded, or the way her dark blue eyes light up a little when she's happy with one. How she somehow acts completely collected but also so flustered at the same time.

Chloe knows she needs to stop. Beca had even told her that night was a one-night thing, a meaningless hook-up; a thought that still makes Chloe feel like someone has her heart in a vice grip whenever she remembers it.

She can't say she isn't alright with just being friends (to a certain extent). It's better than never talking to Beca again, and that is definitely something that she isn't willing to experience. All she can do is hope that she won't mess things up, and maybe even somehow earn Beca's affections (but who is she kidding, really?).

Her best friend, Aubrey, is sitting on Chloe's bed, rolling her eyes at Chloe as Chloe races around her room trying to figure out what to wear for tonight. She's in town for a few days on a business trip for her law firm, and Chloe had begged her to come over during her break to help her figure out what to do for tonight.

"Chloe, please explain to me why you can't just wear the black mini dress that you've tried on _five times _in the past ten minutes. It looks fine!"

"It doesn't!" Chloe protests, digging through her closet, "I don't want to look like I'm trying too hard for her."

"You're acting like a sixteen-year old girl right now, Chloe," Aubrey says, leaning back against the wall as she observes Chloe with an arched eyebrow, "Wear the black dress."

Chloe looks up from the closet, frowning. "I'm being pathetic."

"No, you're not," Aubrey says, sighing, "You just need to calm down a little bit. You haven't even really told me much about this girl."

After a pause, Chloe walks over to the bed and leans against the headrest, throwing her legs across Aubrey's. She runs a hand through her hair and hits the back of her head against the headrest with a soft _thunk. _"Her name is Beca."

Aubrey nods. "Yeah, I know. I also know she works at some production company. I don't know how you two met, or _why _you seem to be borderline _obsessed _with her—"

"I'm not obsessed with her."

"Chloe Beale, you have spent the past hour ripping apart your room to look for an outfit for _one night _at a club with this girl."

"I just want to look nice!"

Aubrey rolls her eyes. "Whatever. This is what happens when I leave you for a few weeks. Continue."

"Her name is Beca, and I met her at a party I was throwing at my parents' house because they're gone for two weeks."

Aubrey sits there quietly for a moment before she's arching an eyebrow again, staring at Chloe. "Met her at a party, or _met her _at a party?"

"I—"

"Don't even think about lying to me."

Chloe covers her face with both hands, groaning. "I hooked up with her, okay?"

"Are you seriously telling me that you're obsessed with a girl you had a _one-night stand _with?"

"Okay, look, Aubrey," Chloe says, removing her hands and glaring at her, "I was really attracted to her, and I knew it the moment I saw her with her friend, but I was drunk enough to not be able to control that. You know how I am when I'm drunk around people I'm attracted to."

"Yeah," Aubrey mutters, "You act like you're a hormonal teenage boy in, like, the Playboy house or something."

"I—that doesn't even make sense," Chloe says, shaking her head.

"Neither do you."

"My point is, I was going to talk to her about things after we hooked up, but she booked it right after. And I thought it was over after that, but then I walked into the Still In Public studio to record my first album, and _bam, _there she is," Chloe says, "And I was actually almost even hoping we'd end up hating each other, but we ended up texting that day and talking more, and I've never been able to talk to someone that easily before—other than you, of course."

"So what's the big problem, here?" Aubrey says, "Why not just ask her out?"

"She told me it was just a hook-up to her, and that we shouldn't talk about it again," Chloe says quietly, looking down at her hands.

Aubrey's facial expression softens a little. "Chloe…"

"Look," Chloe says, looking up at Aubrey, feeling herself start to choke up, "All I can do is just be around her, and that's enough for me."

"Is it really?" Aubrey's voice is skeptical.

"I—" Chloe bites at her lower lip before bringing her knees to her chest. "Yeah."

It's a lie, and Chloe knows that Aubrey knows it's a lie.

Aubrey sighs a little. "Chloe, you're lying to me. I've known you since grade seven. I know you're lying. Not to mention that reading you isn't really that difficult," she adds.

"Read into it all you want, alright?" Chloe's eyes are blank as she stands back up from the bed. "God, I don't know about you sometimes. Is it that hard to believe I mean what I say?"

Aubrey is staring at Chloe with a pensive look on her face, and Chloe knows Aubrey's being brought back to when Chloe's ex, David, had cheated on her after a two-year long relationship, and Aubrey was there to pick up the pieces.

Aubrey nods. "At times."

* * *

Chloe flattens the front part of the black mini dress before she takes a deep breath and knocks on Beca's apartment door, giving herself a mental pep talk before Beca comes to it.

_It's okay if it's not a date. It's probably not a date. In fact, if it __**was **__a date, she would have told me it was a date. It's not a date. Oh god, what if it's a date? Am I supposed to act like I would on a date? How do I even act when I'm on a date? Oh my god—_

Okay, so Chloe's never really been one for pep talks.

She's pursing her lips and attempting at restarting the pep talk when Beca opens the door, and Chloe can't help the sharp intake of breath when she takes a look at what she's wearing.

It's not what Beca usually wears, but it's so _Beca _at the same time; she's wearing a dark blue v-neck (Chloe swears she isn't looking at the cleavage that comes with the v-neck) that makes her eyes look even more intense than they usually are, topped with a black, light leather jacket and skinny jeans with a pair of simple black combat boots. "Hey," she says, smiling, "You look great. Ready to go?"

Chloe's still sort of standing there with her lips pursed and staring at Beca's outfit, and there's a voice screaming in the back of her head telling her to _say something, _but she can only manage to tear her eyes from the way Beca's skinny jeans compliment her curves and the way her v-neck hugs her torso—

She clears her throat and smiles, looking back up at Beca. "I could say the same for you," she says weakly, "Ready if you are."

"You okay?" Beca asks as she steps outside, locking the door and turning back to Chloe, "You look kind of off."

While she steps back a little to give Beca room in the hall, Chloe's hand brushes against Beca's and it takes everything in her will to not grab her hand right then. "I'm fine!" Chloe squeaks, pulling her jacket closer to herself before she starts walking. She sees Beca quirk an eyebrow in the corner of her eyes and she wonders how she's going to make it through the night (with alcohol) without wanting to jump her or something.

_Shut up, Chloe._

* * *

Once they get to the club, it's mayhem; there isn't a single one of Beca's co-workers who _isn't _drunk right now. The taxi driver had ended up initially driving to the wrong club, extending their trip by half an hour and making them half an hour late to the event, giving the others half an hour to take plenty of tequila shots before the two girls got there.

Luke comes up to Beca and Chloe and wraps the two of them in a crushing hug, causing Chloe's face to come dangerously close to Beca's. This night is _already _off to an interesting start.

"Hey, girls!" he shouts over the noise of the music and the crowd, "Welcome to the party. Remember when I said first drinks on me? Second drinks on me, too!"

He stumbles off back to sit at the table, and Beca smiles at Jessica, who comes up next, holding two full shot glasses in her hands.

"I am going to get you _so _plastered tonight, Mitchell," she says, sticking the shot glasses in Beca's hand, then Chloe's. "Good to see you, Chloe! Beca wouldn't stop talking about how nervous she was about inviting you—"

"Jessica!" Beca shouts. Chloe catches Beca nervously glancing over at her for a moment, but decides to pretend that she didn't hear anything, even though she most definitely heard that Beca _wouldn't stop talking about being nervous about inviting her. _

Jessica shrugs, and hands the girls limes. "This tequila's _super _strong, so you're gonna want to have some of this."

After Jessica leaves, Chloe turns to Beca and holds up the shot glass, which Beca taps against hers, smirking. "Cheers, I guess," she yells.

Chloe grins, raising the glass a little. "Congratulations on your promotion! Let loose tonight, you deserve it." She then takes the shot, the tequila burning through her throat and leaving a stinging, burning sensation in her throat, and sucks on her lime slice before sticking it into the glass and setting it on a table.

Beca shakes her head before throwing back the shot and wincing before sucking on the lime. "I'm not planning on drinking much tonight."

* * *

It's been two hours and Beca's completely plastered. The brunette, Stacie, had passed her shot after shot, insisting that it was the "rite of passage" for the new co-manager to get as drunk as possible (without completely blacking out).

Chloe had decided to stay away from too much alcohol, but she's definitely a little drunk. There's a perpetual smile etched on her face as she sits next to Beca, watching her bantering with Jessica about iPods vs. CDs, and Beca's making a great case (even though she was drunk enough to state "I'm drunk enough to invade Europe right now, I _swear_") before Chloe sees her abruptly stop talking when the DJ starts playing "I Knew You Were Trouble" by Taylor Swift.

"Oh my _god!_" Beca yells, standing up quickly (which probably isn't the best idea, considering her current inebriated state) and grabbing Chloe's hand, pulling her up. "I made a remix for this song, like, yesterday. It was like we were born to be. Taylor Swift and I, you know? We just physically click. Or psychologically. Whichever one works."

Chloe's laughing, but at the same time she's _completely _flipping out on the inside because _Beca is leading her to the dance floor_. "I think you mean psychologically, Bec," she says as Beca stops in the middle of the dance floor to snake her arms around Chloe's neck and begins to dance, singing the lyrics of the song into Chloe's ear.

_I knew you were trouble when you walked in…_

Chloe feels herself shuddering a little as Beca's breath tickles her ear, and she tentatively places her hands on Beca's swaying hips, Beca moving in closer so their bodies are pressed up against each other. Chloe's closing her eyes and biting her tongue to keep from doing anything she _knows _she'll regret, like moving her hands down a little lower, or moving her head down and kissing Beca's neck (Beca's lips are now ghosting along Chloe's neck).

Beca pulls her head back to look at Chloe, smiling with a stupidly adorable smile, and their noses are touching. Chloe feels herself leaning forward a little before realizing that Beca's drunk, and that Beca was drunk last time, and that this might be the only circumstance in which Chloe could ever get intimate with Beca like this. "Beca…" she says, a little too quietly, but Beca seems to read Chloe's lips and she grins a little before placing her head back on Chloe's shoulder for the remaining part of the song.

_I knew you were trouble when you walked in  
Trouble, trouble, trouble  
I knew you were trouble when you walked in  
Trouble, trouble, trouble…_

* * *

Beca is still pretty drunk by the time the night is over, and Chloe is a little apprehensive about her being alone for the night while she's this drunk. She's currently got her arm around Beca's waist to support her, because Beca is at a serious risk for falling over at any minute.

Luke's managed to sober up a little. "How far away does Beca live, again?" he asks as they wait outside for their cabs. The other co-workers had ended up bussing together.

"It's about a fifteen minute drive, but I'm not so sure about Beca being home alone for the night after she's had this much to drink."

"I'm not drunk right now," Beca protests quietly from underneath Chloe's arm, leaning her head against Chloe's shoulder. Luke takes one look at her and shakes his head, chuckling.

"I agree," he says, looking over as the cab pulls in, "You two can take this one, then. I'm trusting you to not take advantage of her, by the way," he adds, opening the door for Chloe and smirking.

Chloe laughs a little, ushering Beca into the cab. "Scout's honor."

Once they get to Chloe's apartment, it takes a lot of effort for her to get Beca's shoes off because Beca keeps talking about how ticklish she is and won't stop moving her feet away from Chloe's hands. Chloe's torn between being annoyed and being amused (because drunk Beca is probably the most adorable thing she's ever seen), and after finally getting her shoes off, she leads her to her bed and Beca crawls into it without a word, slipping into the sheets.

Chloe walks out to the kitchen to get a glass of water and a bottle of aspirin and places it on her bedside table before walking towards her closet to get a change of clothes, moving out into her bathroom to change into sweats and a t-shirt.

She's about to go towards her living room to sleep on the couch when she hears Beca faintly calling her name, and walks in to find Beca sitting up, looking rather disoriented. She's thrown the bedsheets off herself.

"What's up, Beca?" Chloe says quietly, sitting at the edge of the bed after switching the small lamp on.

"My feet are cold," Beca mumbles.

"My heating system's shot, sorry. Keep them under the blankets," Chloe says, throwing said blankets back over Beca.

Beca shakes her head. "Blankets aren't good enough."

"Do you want a heating pad? I've got one of those."

"Can you warm my feet up?"

Chloe pauses, raising an eyebrow. "What?"

"'M asking you to cuddle with me, Beale," Beca mutters, tugging on Chloe's hand with her own, "You're always warm."

"Beca, you're drunk…" Chloe's protest is feeble, but she's not exactly _opposed _to cuddling with Beca in her bed.

"And you're a ginger. Are we playing a game of pointing out obvious stuff? Because I heard I'm really good at that. Like I told Jesse that I thought you were really attractive."

Chloe wishes she could take all this to heart, but again, Beca is drunk, and she doesn't want to lead herself into thinking that any of this means any more than it actually does.

"Fine," Chloe says, "Shove over."

Beca moves over to the right to make room for Chloe and turns so her back is towards her. Chloe switches off the lamp next to the bed and lies down on her side, shuffling closer to Beca and sliding an arm around her waist, pressing her front to Beca's back and placing her feet on Beca's, breathing in sharply when she feels how cold they are. "You weren't kidding when you said they were cold."

"I don't lie about stuff, Chloe," Beca murmurs quietly. "Well, about some stuff."

Chloe wants to ask what Beca means by it, but _Beca's drunk _and she doesn't really want to know. She's wondering if it's even possible for her to fall asleep, since her heart is absolutely racing because _she's cuddling with Beca. _

It isn't long before Beca's lightly snoring, and Chloe knows she could probably go back to sleep on the couch, but it's so _warm _here and Chloe's not used to it after living in an apartment where she was too lazy to get the heating fixed.

The combination of Beca's light snoring and the warmth radiating from her makes sleep come a lot easier to Chloe than she thought would ever be possible while being in this close proximity with Beca Mitchell.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Thanks to Jay for beta'ing this! Sorry it took so long to update, I've had a lot of stuff going on at school and a really bad case of writer's block. Promise the next chapter won't take as long...sort of**

* * *

**Chapter 6**

Beca wakes up and she's being held down by something—or someone.

It's actually _really _comfortable and warm, and she's prepared to let her eyes droop down again to go back to sleep until she realizes that she's not in her own bed. She turns her head a little, panicking, and when she turns her head slightly to see what—or who—is holding her down, her panic doesn't really subside.

There's that infuriatingly familiar scent of peaches and fresh air (she still can't quite describe how someone could _possibly _smell like fresh air), and she's met with the sleeping face of Chloe Beale.

Beca is so hungover and disoriented that she absolutely cannot remember how she got into Chloe's apartment, let alone her bedroom, let alone _in her arms, _and she attempts at squirming out of her grasp before Chloe wakes up, but to no avail. Chloe stirs, her eyelids drooping slightly over bright blue eyes as they open (how is it even possible for her eyes to be _that blue _even when she's tired?) and she lets out this noise that sounds like a cross between a moan and a yawn. "Hey," she murmurs casually, moving her arm from Beca's waist to stretch a little.

It's hard to believe how _nonchalant _Chloe's being about this whole situation. Beca's pretty sure her heart could start beating out of her chest soon because the last time she was in a bed with Chloe in this close of proximity-

Okay, maybe thinking about _that _probably isn't the best thing to do in her current situation. "Um, hi," Beca says, quickly getting up from the bed and realizing she's wearing the same clothes she remembers putting on the night before. She hovers next to the bed, debating between booking it out of there right this second or staying a little longer.

Chloe sighs. "Look, nothing happened last night," she says, sitting up and rubbing her eyes wearily (Beca was pretty sure it was impossible to look _that good _right after waking up until now), "I just didn't want you going home alone as drunk as you were, and then you told me your feet were cold and that you wanted me to warm them up and to cuddle with you, so I did."

Beca turns bright red in embarrassment; she's not that much of a touchy-feely person when she's sober, but it's a completely different story when she's drunk. She hides her face behind her hands. "I'm sorry," she mutters, sitting at the edge of Chloe's bed, "I didn't mean to get that drunk."

Chloe giggles."Your co-worker Stacie was saying something about how it was a tradition for all managers to get wasted their first night out as a manager-"

"That's not a thing," Beca says, chuckling and shaking her head before wincing at the dull headache. Chloe reaches over the bed, and Beca catches a glimpse of her toned stomach when her shirt lifts up slightly during the reach and her breath catches in her throat. She quickly looks away.

"Here's some aspirin," Chloe says, reaching out for Beca's hand and placing a pill gently on her hand, her touch lingering a little before she pulls away and holds up a glass of water."Did you get a good rest last night?"

As little of the night as Beca remembers, she does know that she woke up this morning feeling better-rested than she ever had in a while. "I—yeah," she says truthfully, smiling a little, "You're really warm." She swallows the pill, takes the water from Chloe's hand, and sips at it a little.

"So are you," Chloe says, smiling back and scooting closer to Beca. To Beca's surprise, she doesn't feel the need to shuffle away or run out of the room. She even finds herself leaning closer towards Chloe.

"Are you feeling better, though?" Chloe asks, placing her hand on the small of Beca's back. Beca's breath catches in her throat, and she waits a moment for Chloe to remove her hand, but she doesn't.

She nods slightly. "Yeah. I've got a killer headache, though."

"Duh. Your liver must look like camoflauge," Chloe said, rubbing Beca's back a little before standing up and pulling a sweater over her head on top of her t-shirt. "We can go for a walk or something to get you some fresh air, and maybe go for breakfast."

Beca's mind involuntarily goes to making excuses to get out of it, but then she realizes that there's really no reason to avoid hanging out with Chloe; it's not that she ever didn't _want _to hang out with her, either. She just hadn't thought she would ever be able to handle it, but seeing as she's just spent an entire night cuddling with her, Beca's pretty sure she can handle hanging out with her. "Sure," she finally says. She looks down at her clothes and realizes she's wearing the same thing she was wearing last night, and she feels pretty gross. "I'm not changed or showered though. Should I just go back to my place and do that and we can meet up someplace?"

Chloe tilts her head a little to the right and smiles a confused smile. "I've got a shower. And clothes," she says, with a sarcastic lilt to her voice, "Why not just save the trouble and time of going all the way back?"

After a moment, Beca lays down and stretches across Chloe's bed as Chloe reaches in her closet, presumably digging around for clothes. "Yeah, that works, too. I just wouldn't want to inconvenience you, kind of like I did last night."

She swears she can hear something along the lines of "Last night was the furthest thing from an inconvenience" murmured from Chloe, but then Chloe turns to Beca and playfully tosses a pair of tights and a long sweater at Beca and says, "God, yeah. Cuddling? Gross."

Beca reaches over and throws a pillow at Chloe. "As if Chloe Beale hates cuddling. You practically _scream_ 'cuddle with me at least once a day or I might die.'_" _

"I'm totally kidding, by the way," she says, sitting at the edge of the bed, "I had a lot of fun last night, and it was great to see you again."

"It was great to see you too—_shit,_" Beca says after looking at the clock. Chloe quirks a brow.

"What's up?"

"What day is it today?" Beca quickly sits up.

"Saturday."

"Shit, shit, shit!" Beca hops up from the bed and undresses herself _right in front of Chloe _before realizing what she's doing. "Um—oh my god."

Chloe stares at Beca for a minute, wide-eyed, before turning away slightly. "You're freaking me out, Beca," she says, "Is stripping at 10 in the morning some sort of morning ritual for you?"

"I—no," Beca says, sighing. She pulls the tights and sweater on (the sweater is at least ten times too big for her, just like every other article of clothing she's ever worn that wasn't hers). "Sorry. I'm wearing clothes now," she says to Chloe, who had her back turned to Beca. Chloe turns with a questioning look in her eyes.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on, or should I start randomly stripping, too?"

Beca chuckles a little, running her fingers through her hair. "I'm supposed to pick my best friend, Jesse, up from the airport in, like, an hour. We sort of had a bit of a falling out a few days back, but that doesn't mean I get to ditch him at the airport."

"I can drive you there," Chloe offers.

"It's so far. You could just drop me off at my apartment and I could just take my car."

"It's fine, Beca," Chloe says, reaching out and placing a hand on Beca's arm. Beca finds it a little funny (well, not _funny _funny, but weird funny) that that she isn't pulling away like she usually would. "I didn't really even get a chance to get to know the guy at my party because-" she stops abruptly, and Beca's hungover brain takes a bit of a moment before she realizes what would have come after the "because."

The two of them stand there in a bit of an uncomfortable silence before Beca moves her arm from Chloe's hand to awkwardly scratch her nose. "Okay," she finally says, holding out her hand to Chloe, who slides her hand in Beca's and tugs herself up.

It's not until they get outside Chloe's apartment when Beca realizes that they're still holding hands, and she doesn't make much of an effort to move away; it doesn't really feel _weird _or anything, which surprises Beca even further, because it took her almost two years to get used to Jesse's tendency to swing his arm around her every time they walked together.

Chloe lets go of Beca's hand, unlocks her car, and opens the passenger door for her. "Ma'am," she says jokingly, gesturing for Beca to enter the car.

"My knight in shining armor," Beca says, laughing as she enters the car.

* * *

Their drive to the airport was full of conversation, and Chloe singing along to whatever cheesy pop song is playing on the radio as she drives; she tried to get Beca to sing along to "Call Me Maybe" at one point, but Beca firmly shook her head and said no, until Chloe threatened to pull over and leave her at the side of the highway if she didn't. Beca ended up giving in, and she swears she's never sung a song with as much heart as she did with Carly Rae Jepsen in Chloe's car.

They're at the airport now, and Chloe's gone to Starbucks while Beca waits for Jesse to arrive to get them both some coffee. After a while, Beca sees Jesse walk out of the arrival gates, dragging his suitcase behind him.

It's a little tense at first, because the last time they talked was almost a week ago, and Beca had said some not-so-nice things to him over the phone before hanging up on him, but after a moment, Jesse smiles, props his suitcase up, and pulls Beca into a hug.

"Good to see you, Be-caw," he says, squeezing her one more time before pulling away.

Beca chuckles, playfully punching him in the chest. "Good to see you too. I'm sorry for the shit I said over the phone that other night."

"It's alright. You've said worse. I was just afraid I'd have to cab home. How are things on that front anyway?"

"The Chloe front? I-"

Beca doesn't finish her sentence because Chloe sidles up next to her, holding two coffee cups. "Hey," she says, "I got you a caramel macchiatio with extra caramel. That's what you like, right? Because I remember you ordering it at Thomas' cafe, but I didn't know if you would like it from Starbucks. Hi, Jesse," she adds, throwing a smile at him.

Jesse quirks an eyebrow for a moment before smiling back. "Good to see you again, Chloe. Haven't seen you since your party. Not like I saw you much there," he says, winking at Beca, whose eyes widen. _He thinks we're together. _It's the only explanation for the fact that he just shot off a _very _non-subtle innuendo just now.

To Beca's relief, Chloe lets it pass and chuckles a little. "Where were you, anyway?"

"San Francisco, helping out my uncle with his production company and scoring some movies."

"Sweet," Chloe says, passing the cup to Beca. Beca takes a sip of it and smiles; it's not quite the same as the caramel macchiatos Thomas makes, but it's still pretty damn good.

"Thanks, Chloe," she murmurs. Chloe nods and wraps an arm around Beca's waist, giving her something like a side-hug before pulling away. Beca catches Jesse momentarily biting his lip to keep from laughing, and she narrows her eyes at him.

"So, I've practically got all day," Jesse says, "I just have to go home and unpack first. Did you guys want to hang out? I mean, if you two wanted to spend time alone, that's fine with me, too," he adds hastily.

"No, it's fine," Beca and Chloe say at the same time. They look at each other and Chloe lets out a little giggle, and Beca can't help but smile at her.

"I think it'd be fun for us to hang out!" she says, putting her arm around Beca's waist again momentarily. Beca _still _isn't pulling away from her touches, and it's starting to get a little disconcerting, because she's starting to put all this double meaning behind it (which is the last thing she needs to be doing right now).

"Great. There's an amusement park in town we could go to, if you're into that kind of thing," Jesse says, making it a point to look at Beca, because he _knows _Beca hates amusement parks (more like rollercoasters, but rollercoasters are in amusement parks which automatically makes amusement parks a _huge _no-no).

"Yes!" Chloe squeals before Beca can say no, "I haven't been to an amusement park since grade ten!"

"We could totally ride a few rollercoasters, too," Jesse says, now smirking. Beca doesn't even try to hide the glare she's looking at him with.

On their way out of the airport and back to Chloe's car, Beca mutters just loud enough for Jesse to hear.

"I hate you."

Jesse just smirks. "I just gave you a free ticket to hold Chloe's hand on the rollercoaster. You're welcome."

* * *

Beca hates just about everything about amusement parts. They're too crowded, they're too noisy, there are too many kids, and _roller coasters. _

She just doesn't like the way roller coasters make her feel; the way they trick her into thinking she's completely fine in the beginning before completely screwing her over and sending her downhill so fast, she can barely even scream, and then suddenly slowing down, tricking her into thinking you're fine again, and then suddenly, it's a mess of loops and turns that make you feel sick. Things in life should be steady (even though they never usually are), and roller coasters completely refute that.

Of course the first lineup Jesse leads them to is the lineup for the roller coaster. Beca can feel herself growing pale and jittery, and Chloe looks at her with a concerned look on her face. "You okay?"

Beca shakes her head. "I really hate roller coasters," she mutters.

"We can just go on another ride if you want," Chloe says, smiling, "I'm just here to hang out with you—and Jesse, of course," she says. Jesse bows a little. "I think I can handle not going on a roller coaster."

"It's alright," Beca says, "I'll just be having a miniature panic attack while I'm on it."

They get to the front of the line, and Beca's buckled in next to Chloe. She's pursing her lips slightly, and digging her toe into the floor of the cart before she feels Chloe's hand, warm against the clammy cold of Beca's, slide over hers. "I'm right here," she says, a reassuring smile on her face. "If the buckle breaks, I'll hold you back."

"Thanks for adding to the 'reasons Beca Mitchell fears roller coasters' list, Chloe," Beca deadpans. "Buckles breaking. Great."

Chloe squeezes her hand tighter and laughs. "I won't let go until you want me to."

* * *

Beca spends the entire ride holding Chloe's hand so tight, she's pretty sure Chloe will lose all feeling in that hand for the rest of the day. Once they get off, they're still holding hands, before Beca lets go of Chloe's hand to punch Jesse's arm. "This was your idea. I could have died on there."

"If you died on there, I'd be the first person to sue the roller coaster company," Jesse jokes, "Besides, you had Chloe holding your hand the whole time. If my girlfriend was holding my hand during a roller coaster ride, I think I'd be fine."

Out of the corner of her eye, Beca sees Chloe do a bit of a double take. "We aren't dating," Chloe says, laughing uneasily. Beca then sees Jesse flush a little.

"I—oh," he says quietly, scratching his head a little. "Um."

Whatever excuse he was about to make up is interrupted by his phone seemingly going off. He pulls it out of his pocket and reads the text, looking back up when he does. "There's a party tonight at my friend Benji's house," he says, "I'm allowed to bring guests. Do you two want to go?"

Beca's mouth is still a little dry, both from Jesse's slip-up and the roller coaster, and she looks at Chloe. When they make eye contact, Beca has no doubt in her mind that Chloe's mind is going to the same place hers is; a party. With both Beca and Chloe in attendance. _Sound familiar? _

"I'd be down for a party," Chloe says, still looking at Beca, who nods a little.

"Yeah, I guess I'll go," she says, continuing her walk.

"I've just got to go to the bathroom," Chloe says, gesturing to the nearest building, "Can you guys wait up for me?"

"We'll be right here," Beca says as Chloe smiles at her and walks off. Jesse turns to Beca the moment Chloe's out of earshot.

"I'm an idiot. I'm super sorry about that fuck-up just now. I seriously thought you guys were dating," he says quickly.

"It's okay—what made you think we were even dating?"

"Um, hello?" Jesse lightly taps the side of Beca's head. "Earth to Beca? Have you not _seen _you two yet? She held your hand on the roller coaster, she's been giving you these disgustingly cute side-hugs and loving glances that a girlfriend would give to her girlfriend. Not to mention she remembered your coffee order."

"She's not even into me, Jesse," Beca says, sighing, "We established it was just a hook-up-"

"Alright, stop talking right there," he says, "There is _no way in hell _Chloe isn't into you. I've seen—and scored—enough movies to know what it looks like when someone's into someone. And Chloe fits all the criteria. In fact, if I had a checklist on me, I'd be checking things off nonstop with you two."

Beca furrows her eyebrows and crosses her arms. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

It makes sense, in retrospect; Beca had passed off all of the subtle and the not-so-subtle touches from Chloe as just her being _Chloe _ever since Chloe had first walked into her studio, being all touchy-feely with anyone she meets, but she's realizing now that Chloe's barely even touched Jesse since they picked him up at the airport.

"Make your move at Benji's party tomorrow night, Beca," he says as Chloe walks out of the building, "Promise it'll work."

Beca looks over at Chloe, who smiles back at her, and she can't help but think that Chloe Beale could be her own personal roller coaster.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Sorry for the long wait (again). It was mainly due a lack of motivation since I was rarely getting reviews for this, but thank you to the people who have reviewed so far! (The faceclaim for Tess is Tessa Virtue.)You can also contact me on Tumblr (my URL is the same as my pen name).  
**

* * *

**Beca**

For the umpteenth time in the past few weeks, Beca Mitchell doesn't know what she's doing here.

Nothing's changed in parties since the last one she went to (she doesn't really know what she was expecting), and she still feels slightly claustrophobic with the amount of people crammed into a relatively small house. Chloe slides her hand in Beca's, and all Beca is doing right at this moment as they walk through the crowd is rehearsing the things she's wanted to say to Chloe since they had first met.

Chloe breaks into Beca's thoughts, squeezing her hand slightly before letting go. "You okay?"

Beca nods, looking over at Chloe and grinning. "Peachy. I _love_ parties," she deadpans, causing Chloe to giggle slightly.

"We'll make it fun," she says, leaning into kiss Beca's cheek lightly before breaking away to wave at a random spot in the crowd. Beca sees Jesse waving back and making his way through the groups of people.

"Hey!" he shouts over the music, "Great to see you guys here!"

"Good to see you, too, Jesse," Chloe says, grinning and turning towards Beca, "I'm going to grab us some drinks, okay? Stay right here, don't run away."

"I'll try," Beca grumbles, crossing her arms tightly and making a fake pouting face. Chloe laughs and gives Beca another one of her little waist-side-hugs before disappearing into the crowd of people. Jesse turns to Beca.

"Ready for tonight?"

"Ready as I'll ever be. I'm not planning on even drinking that much."

Jesse rolls his eyes. "I don't mean the _party. _I mean letting your little ginger over there know exactly how you're feeling. Mushy-gushy stuff. Although," he says, "I don't see a bouquet of flowers anywhere on your person."

"No way in hell am I giving Chloe flowers for this!" Beca says, shuddering at the mere thought, "I'm keeping it short and simple."

"Can I give you a few suggestions?"

"As long as they don't involve giving her _flowers._"

"Fine," Jesse huffs. "I say you go up to her, grab her, and kiss her. And after the kiss is over, just be all like, 'Now you know how I feel about you through that one _very _passionate kiss I just gave you. You should date me.'"

"_You should date me. _No wonder you're single, Jess," Beca says, sighing and running her fingers through her hair. "I'm just going to say whatever comes to mind so it's more—y'know, natural."

"I'm single because I haven't found the right girl yet!" Jesse says indignantly, "And you have, which means you no longer have to be single and I can live vicariously through you. Even though I'm not a lesbian."

Beca groans. "Shut up."

"Whatever you say. Oh, by the way, Benji wanted to say hi to you. He's over by the kitchen."

At this, Beca perks up slightly; her and Benji always got along really well but rarely saw each other, and she missed the guy. She nods at Jesse. "I'll see you around here, then."

"See you. Let me know how things with Chloe go, yeah?"

"Yeah," Beca says, waving him off dismissively and walking towards the kitchen and saying hello to a few old faces on the way there. She sees Benji looking into his fridge and starts to walk towards him, but before she can get there, she's stopped by someone placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Beca Mitchell."

Beca freezes on the spot when she recognizes the voice from behind her and whirls around, seeing the all-too familiar face of Tessa Campbell. She feels extremely nauseous all of a sudden, and it's most definitely _not_ the same kind of butterflies-in-the-stomach kind of pleasant nauseous she gets around Chloe.

She digs her toe into the bottom of her converse at an attempt to compose herself before speaking. "Tess," she says curtly.

"Ah, come on," Tess says, taking her hand off Beca's shoulder and stepping in closer towards her (Tess has the tendency to hover over people—maybe to feel like she actually has power over them), "Don't be that way."

"What are you even doing here?" Beca says, unable to move because the countertop is pressed against her back, "I heard you were in Europe working for some kind of exchange program."

"Been keeping tabs on me, eh, Mitchell?" Tessa says, her lips curling up into a sarcastic smile. Beca grinds her toe even further into her shoe to keep from pushing Tess out of the way and back to Chloe. "I'm back to visit my family, and Benji's brother is a friend of mine, so I got an invite to this party."

"That's nice," Beca says, attempting at an air of dismissiveness, "I have somewhere I need to be."

"Back to that redhead?"

"How do you—"

"I saw you walking in here holding hands with her. Didn't think she would be your type. She seems awfully perky for "I hate everything" Beca Mitchell."

Beca feels anger bubbling up in her chest. "Why are you being like this?"

Tess ignores her completely. "How long have you girls been seeing each other for?" She steps in closer, and Beca can smell the cherry-flavored vodka on her breath.

"We aren't seeing each other," Beca says, making the annoyance in her voice crystal clear, "It was good to see you, but I'm going to go talk to Benji now."

"Hold on just one moment, Beca," Tessa says, grabbing on to Beca's arm (it doesn't feel nearly the same as it does when Chloe does it), "I haven't seen you in forever now. We should at least catch up sometime. I'm leaving next week."

"That's great, Tess," Beca shoots back, "There's no way we're going to 'catch up' after all the shit you pulled on me."

"Fine," Tess says, letting go of Beca's arm and leaning in infuriatingly close again, "I'm surprised you even got the girl interested in you in the first place. What with the shit communication skills and all that fancy stuff."

"Shut up," Beca growls, "Goodbye."

She storms off into the crowd, tears stinging at her eyes again and desperate to find Chloe—and then she finds Chloe.

Chloe's not alone.

She's the farthest thing from "alone."

"I take the whole "interested in you" thing back," Tessa says into Beca's ear from behind. Beca doesn't even bother turning to face her.

Her eyes are transfixed on Chloe, who is fully sitting on the lap of some burly-looking guy, and it looks like they're about to start hooking up at any minute now.

Beca wonders how the night went awry so quickly (she's been here all of fifteen minutes), and she feels the tears welling up in her eyes before she's storming outside of the house. She sits on the front steps of Benji's house, bringing her knees up to her chest and letting the sobs start to rack her body.

So much for telling Chloe what she wanted to tell her.

So much for Chloe.

The last thing she needs right now ends up coming behind her though, and she recognizes Chloe's voice. "Beca?"

**Chloe**

She had wanted to spend the night with Beca; that's all she wanted to do. She wanted to pretend to get drunk so she could tell Beca _exactly _what she felt about her (she would have been too scared to do it sober). She wanted this night to be about Beca.

"Jesse," she says, seeing him socializing with a group of people in the living room. He puts his arm around her and introduces her to everyone, and she catches the eye of some guy who's eyeing her and giving her the up-down, and it takes everything in her power to not screw her face up in distaste. _Pig. _She catches his name—Bumper—and she waits for Jesse to finish.

After he's finished introducing her to them, he removes his arm from her shoulders and turns to her. "What's up? Are you enjoying yourself?"

"It's been less than ten minutes, Jesse," she says, laughing. She holds up the two red solo cups she filled for her and Beca. "I was just wondering where Beca was."

Jesse goes on his tiptoes to look over the various heads in the crowd, and Chloe sees his face fall. "What the hell," he mutters, settling back down and eyeing Chloe nervously.

"What?" she says, following his gaze to see that Beca's basically been cornered by some girl who looks like a cross between Nicole Kidman and Katy Perry. She can basically feel her heart being squeezed dry and hear it being cracked open, and it's a wonder that Jesse doesn't hear it, too. "Who is that?" she says, her voice surprisingly even as she attempts at a nonchalant tone.

"That's her ex," Jesse says, still looking at Chloe, "I have no clue what she's doing here. Thought she was in Europe, but I guess she's back." He takes another quick glance back at them, and all Chloe really sees is the other girl leaning in further towards Beca before her vision is obstructed by the clamor of the crowd in the house.

Chloe nods, and raises the mixed drink in her right hand to her lips and chugs the entire thing until it's empty, passing the full cup to Jesse. "Have a good night, Jesse," she says.

"Wait, Chloe!" she hears behind her, but she ignores it and walks straight up to the guy that was eyeing her when Jesse introduced her to his friends. He's sitting on the couch, leaning back and taking small sips of his beer.

"Hi there," she breathes, stepping in close as the haze of jealousy rings through her vision. The boy is obviously taken aback, but quickly straightens up and throws her a smile. She hates the way he looks at her, like she's just another piece of ass at a party. She hates the way he doesn't seem to care at all—until she realizes that not caring is probably one of the best things that could possibly happen to her at this point.

"Well, hello," he says. "Would you like this seat?"

Without a second thought, Chloe slides down onto his lap, positioning herself so he can place his arm around her waist. "I wouldn't want to impose," she says, ignoring the screaming voice in the back of her head telling her to get ahold of herself.

She sees the guy start to lean in, and she can feel his nose touching hers and she regrets what she's doing the moment she feels that, because it's not _Beca _and it's not even close to Beca, but Beca's with that other girl—her ex—and Chloe feels like an idiot for even thinking she has a chance.

She then sees a very sudden movement through the corner of her eye, and she turns and recognizes Beca's petite figure and wavy brunette hair pushing through the crowd. To Chloe's (dark) pleasure, Beca looks like she's pissed, and Chloe immediately jumps from Bumper's lap and runs after Beca.

There's a bit of a smile on her face, but that smile is immediately wiped off the moment she sees that Beca's crying on the steps.

"Beca?" she says warily, stepping towards her. She's startled when Beca shoots up from her sitting position and turns to face Chloe, her eyes filled with tears and her nose red from crying. Chloe reaches out to give her a hug, but Beca quickly steps back.

"No," Beca states firmly.

"What's wrong?"

"Are you actually being serious right now? Why don't you tell me what you were doing on that guy's lap about a minute ago?"

Chloe wants to say _because I saw you with your ex and I got jealous and I wanted to not feel jealous_, but all she manages is, "It—it was just an in the moment thing—I—"

Beca waves her hand, and Chloe instantly shuts her mouth. "You talk about this real world like it's a goddamn landmark and we're still in line waiting to get in. You act like right now doesn't matter. Like it doesn't even exist." Beca shakes her head. "Listen, alright? This is the real world. This is as real as it's going to get. Right now, tonight, has as much real meaning as you're ready to give it." Beca's eyes fill with pain as they peer into Chloe's. "I can see pretty clearly why everything is so meaningless to you."

It takes a while for Chloe to process just what Beca is saying to her, and even once she does, she can't articulate a coherent response for her. "Meaningless?"

"I'm talking about the goddamn party!" Beca yells, startling Chloe, "The one where we first met! It was all meaningless to you, wasn't it?! I spent all this time reading into every single one of your fucking flirtatious gestures since you walked into my goddamned work, convincing myself that you actually, just maybe thought it wasn't meaningless, because it sure as fucking hell wasn't meaningless to me. Next thing I know, you're sitting in the lap of some douchebag who obviously wanted nothing more than a hook-up, and you know what I'm realizing? I'm realizing you and him are exactly the same."

Chloe's mouth is dry, and she's stuck between this absolute happiness at the fact that Beca's saying this to her and confusion as to what's really going on. "I—"

"Stop," Beca says, waving her hand again and starting to turn her back towards Chloe, tears spilling down her face into the t-shirt she's wearing, "You know how I feel now. That's all I wanted out of tonight. Maybe not this—definitely not this—but I needed you to know."

"Beca, please—" Chloe chokes out, reaching out pathetically for Beca's arm before Beca maneuvers herself so Chloe's hand falls back to her side.

"I can't be around you anymore," Beca whispers, moving back towards Chloe. "I can't do this, whatever this—thing was."

"Let me explain."

Beca shakes her head and smiles a sad smile. "It's okay," she murmurs, looking back up into Chloe's eyes, which have filled with tears of their own. Chloe closes her eyes as Beca moves up on her tip toes and presses her lips to Chloe's tear-stained cheek.

When she opens them, Beca's gone.

**A/N: Okay, that was pretty mean...but I promise Beca x Chloe will work things out soon! See you next chapter! Please keep reviewing and following, love you guys :)**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: THANK YOU to everyone who has left reviews! They seriously motivate me so much to continue writing. This is a fairly long chapter, hope you all enjoy! Thanks to Jay for being my beta!**

* * *

Two weeks.

It's been two weeks since Beca last heard from Chloe, and part of her has been hoping that Chloe would burst in through the doors of her studio, just like she did last time, but that has yet to happen.

She's even worse than she was before; she barely comes to work if she can help it, and when she does, she shuts herself in the studio until she's finished what she needs to do for the day, and walks out right after without even taking so much as a glance at anyone.

Beca's aware that it's her who stopped Chloe from letting her say anything, and she's aware that she's the one who walked away first, but she's regretted making that choice since the moment she turned the corner of the block. She hasn't worked in a week now, and she's been sitting in her apartment (more like lying in her bed making shitty remixes on her laptop, only getting out to eat and use the facilities), ignoring any calls other than business-related ones.

The whole "I don't want to talk to anyone" thing doesn't seem to be quite working for her, because Jesse Swanson is currently pounding away at Beca's door.

"Beca, I swear to god if you don't open this door _right now, _I'll post all those embarrassing photos of you from that party we went to in grade ten all over Facebook."

Beca's sprawled out on the living room couch, toying with a Rubik's cube (that's all she does with it—spins around the colors without even knowing what she's doing). "I don't even use Facebook anymore. Go away."

"I'm not leaving until you open the door."

"So you'll leave after I open the door?"

She hears a groan and smirks a little.

Jesse knocks on the door again. It starts to feel like he's knocking on her head, and she winces a little. "Open the door. You need to start getting your shit together, and I'm going to be the one who helps you start doing that."

"I could call the police on you."

The knocking stops for a moment before Jesse calls her on her bluff and continues knocking. "Open the goddamned door, Beca Mitchell!"

Beca lets out a loud, angry noise, stands up, and swears profusely on her way to the door, jerking it open. Jesse stumbles forwards a little, looking around her apartment with wide eyes.

"This place looks like it hasn't been cleaned in over a week—oh, wait."

Beca just stands there and glares at him, her patience already growing thin. "What the fuck do you want, Jesse?"

Jesse raises both of his hands in mock defense and walks over to the small table in her kitchen, starting to clear the dirty plates from it and moving to the sink, turning the sink on and washing her dishes for her. "I'm wondering what happened at Benji's party. I mean, I guess I sort of have an idea, what with Tess and all—"

There's a flash of anger that goes through Beca's chest at the mere mention of Tess's name. "Nothing happened with Tess and I."

"Well, duh. That's not what's important. What I'm trying to ask is what happened after Chloe followed you out of the party that night. Because I'm pretty sure whatever happened out there was completely the opposite of what I expected."

"Excellent deduction, Sherlock Holmes," Beca deadpans, moving over and sitting at the table with a resigned look on her face. "I ended things with her."

"You guys weren't even together in the first place!" Jesse says, turning from the sink to stare at Beca with a bewildered look on his face.

"I mean—I pre-emptively ended things with her."

"I don't even know what that means."

Beca feels anger bubble up in her chest. "She was about to hook up with another guy!"

"Because she probably thought you were about to hook up with Tess!"

She pauses for a moment before shaking her head. "I wasn't—"

"I know that, but she doesn't."

"That's still no excuse for going to hook up with some random dude as revenge."

"They never hooked up."

Beca sighs and leans back against her chair. "Doesn't matter, anyway. I basically told her there's never gonna be anything meaningful to her with the way she thinks. There's no way she'll take me back at this point."

"You're acting like Tess."

"Am not!" Beca says loudly, straightening up, "Not even close!"

Jesse finishes up with the few dishes and moves on to her living room, where Beca follows and flops on the couch, watching him as he clears the coffee table. "You're a pig," he mutters, shaking his head. "And sure, maybe you aren't being like Tess, and maybe it wasn't right of Chloe to leap right into someone else's arms without fully recognizing what the situation was first, but think about it from her perspective. If I, as in Jesse Swanson, didn't know any better, it would have looked like you were about to hook up with Tess—shut up, I know you weren't going to," he adds, holding up a folded newspaper to stop Beca from talking when he sees her mouth open, "And if I liked you as much as Chloe did, I'd be angry enough to make an irrational decision like flirt with the nearest willing person."

"Chloe doesn't like me."

"You shut up, Beca Mitchell!" Jesse shouts suddenly, completely startling Beca, "Get your shit together and _go find her _and stop being in denial about this whole goddamn thing. I get that you're sad, alright? It sucks, it really does, but—"

Beca doesn't realize her eyes have filled with tears until a drop starts rolling down her face. "You don't get it, Jesse," Beca says, her voice quavering, "Chloe and I are supposed to _work, _but we're not working."

Jesse plops himself down on the couch next to Beca and swings a comforting arm around her, and she rests her head against his shoulder. "It's not working because you keep doing this thing where you miscommunicate with each other. And you act like no one understands how you're feeling right now," he says. "You act like you're a mystery and the world can't be bothered to figure you out. I just want you to know that you're wrong. You're not a mystery. Everyone, _everyone_, understands how you feel. You feel like everything and nothing. Like when you breathe your deepest breath, you're only getting air, and you don't understand why that feels so wrong. You feel like you're crazy for thinking this way and you don't dare speak your madness to normal people. But all of us, honestly all of us, are both clinically sane and insane, and all of us understand, so you have to talk to us about it. Not just me, but Chloe." He rubs her shoulder gently. "People have the tendency to cultivate their feelings, and sadness is the easiest to grow."

There's a small pause before Beca sighs deeply and burrows her head into Jesse's shoulder. "Why do you always have to be so goddamn right, Jesse Swanson?"

* * *

Beca still hasn't contacted Chloe yet, and it's been a day since Jesse's visit; she figures she might as well go grab coffee or something from Thomas' café before she does anything to calm herself down.

She walks into the café, greeted heartily—as usual—by Thomas, and orders her drink, leaning forward against the counter while she waits. Once she gets her drink, she turns to go find a table, only to see what couldn't be anything else but the back of Chloe's head.

"Great," she mutters, taking a sip of her drink before warring with herself, trying to decide whether to walk out or to go sit in front of Chloe or at a different table from Chloe; before she knows it, though, she's walking towards her, and sits herself down in front of her. Chloe looks up from her laptop, looking a little startled, and she quickly pulls her earphones out.

"Beca!" she says, closing her laptop and giving her a bit of a shocked smile.

"This is my favorite café. You seem surprised about the fact that I'm here," Beca says lightheartedly, leaning back against her seat. Chloe chuckles.

"Well, I mean—you haven't been here for the past two weeks, so—" Chloe stops talking and purses her lips, fiddling with her earphones a bit. Beca then realizes that Chloe's been here often enough to notice that Beca isn't here—maybe even coming here to see if Beca _would _be here. "Long time no see," Chloe finally says. "How have you been?"

_I've been a giant mess and yesterday was the first time I showered in days and I miss you more than anything. _"Great. Pretty good." Beca sighs, realizing that she's been meaning to _talk _to Chloe and not just make idle small talk with her, let alone lie to her. She shakes her head. "I haven't been very well lately."

Chloe nods. "Neither have I."

There's a long pause before Beca finally voices what the two of them probably wanted to say. "I've missed you."

Beca swears that Chloe sighs this sigh of relief. "Good," Chloe says, "I mean—not _good, _but good, because I've missed you, too. It's been weird not having you around every day."

Another pause. Beca hasn't really had any face-to-face interaction in the past two weeks, so her filter is more or less non-existent. "Look, about Benji's party—"

"Do you want to discuss this somewhere else?" Chloe interrupts, looking around at the people sitting around them, "Somewhere more private?"

"What, do you think I'm going to throw this coffee over your head and storm out?" Beca jokes. She pauses. "Yeah, sure. We can just head over to my apartment, I guess. Jesse got me to clean it so it doesn't smell like a varsity football team's locker room."

"Glad to hear it," Chloe says, giggling as they walk out.

They aren't quite back to normal yet, but Beca can tell Chloe's trying, and that's about all she can ask for at this point.

She has to admit, though, it's a weird feeling not having some sort of physical contact with Chloe as they walk over to her apartment.

Once they get there, Beca heads over to her kitchen to pour a glass of water for herself, moving to the living room and awkwardly standing behind the couch, leaning against the back of it. "Do you want anything?" she asks Chloe, who shakes her head and leans against the piano that's behind the couch, facing Beca.

She gestures towards the piano she's leaning against. "Didn't know you played."

Beca shrugs. "I plink around on it once in a blue moon. My dad gave it to me when he moved to Seattle."

Chloe nods slightly and scratches her chin a little, looking around at Beca's apartment with a small smile on her face. "I like your apartment. It's really cozy—and it's really _you._"

"It's also tiny, so I guess you're right about the 'you' thing," Beca says, making Chloe laugh a little. Chloe meets Beca's eyes again. There isn't that much space between the piano and the couch—leaving even less space between Chloe and Beca.

"So, you wanted to talk about Benji's," Chloe says.

Beca bites the inside of her cheek before nodding. "Yeah. That girl that was there—Tess—she was my ex—is my ex. I don't exactly know what she was trying to do, but she was invading my personal space and trying to hover over me—that's a thing she does—and there's nothing going on between her and I."

There's a flash of what looks like realization in Chloe's eyes. "Oh," she says in a small voice. She clears her throat, looking down at her feet before looking back up at Beca. "I was jealous. Of you and her—I wasn't thinking properly, and I didn't really know what else to do—"

"You could have talked to me."

"Beca, at the time, I thought you were about to get back together with your ex!" Chloe says, her voice increasing in volume, "What else was I supposed to think? This girl comes out of nowhere, and she's got you cornered, and the last thing I see before some idiots move in front of my vision is her leaning in towards you."

"Why would it even matter if I hooked up with her?" Beca says, her eyes widening as she realizes what she just said, "I didn't mean it like that—"

"I don't care anymore, Beca," Chloe says, her voice lowering in volume and taking on a more exasperated tone, "I'm tired of this miscommunication bullshit between us. I know what you meant. I heard you loud and clear before you left at that party last night." Chloe pushes off the piano slightly to move closer towards Beca. "You didn't let me finish any of my sentences that night."

"Would it have changed anything?"

"You would have been able to hear what I wanted to say to you," Chloe says. Beca's vaguely aware of her moving infinitesimally closer towards her. "The two weeks apart wouldn't have had to happen."

"What did you want to say?" Beca says quietly, realizing at this point that she knows exactly what Chloe wanted to say as she watches Chloe move in closer towards her, her bright blue eyes flitting from Beca's eyes to her lips.

"It wasn't just a hookup to me." Chloe's lips are mere inches away from Beca's. "I don't know what possessed you to ever assume that it wasn't."

Beca is at a loss for words, like she always has been whenever she's been in this close proximity to Chloe Beale.

"I'd like to kiss you now, if that's okay," Chloe murmurs. Beca doesn't really respond, but she doesn't have to; her eyes slip closed as Chloe kisses her, lightly at first— and completely unlike their kiss back at that party in Chloe's bedroom—and then Chloe moves her hand up to caress Beca's cheek and uses her other hand to pull Beca closer by her waist, and Beca places her hands on Chloe's hips, parting her lips slightly when Chloe does.

They kiss like that for long moments, only pulling away for air, pressed up against each other's bodies, and Beca feels Chloe sigh happily into her mouth before she pauses for a moment, her lips still against Beca's but not quite kissing them. "Is this just a hookup?"

Beca grins and leans forward, pressing her lips against Chloe's. "Not a chance," she murmurs.

Most definitely not.

* * *

**A/N: Alright, so from here on, this fic can go two fairly different ways-one way means this fic is over in another chapter, maybe two chapters at most, and the other means this fic is made around 3~4 chapters longer. Let me know what you want below in the review, or leave your thoughts in my ask box on Tumblr (my URL is the same as my pen name). Thanks for reading!**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: I'm so sorry for not updating for such a long time! Between a lot of stuff going on in my life and writer's block, I just couldn't seem to find any time/inspiration to write, lately, but I'm slowly going back on track. Final exams are coming up for me, though, so there's no telling how consistent I'll be with updating (sorry about that). Here's a relatively fluffy chapter to make up for the angst/slow update. Also, the consensus seems to be 3~4 more chapters, so that's going to be a thing!**

* * *

Beca is rushing around the living room in her apartment wearing nothing but one of Chloe's old Vampire Weekend t-shirts and pajama shorts. She'd slept in very late, and it was almost one in the afternoon—almost time for the date that she and Chloe have planned for today. It's supposed to be their "two-month anniversary" date, even though Beca's pretty sure the definition of "anniversary" is something along the lines of a _yearly _thing, but that's just the way Chloe is and Beca's learned by now to just roll with whatever it is Chloe Beale thinks up, including two-month anniversary dates.

She doesn't know too much about what they're doing today—Chloe had told her that they were going to a grassy clearing not far off into the woods where they could have "their own little private picnic".

By the time she manages to find a pair of jeans to change into, she hears Chloe knocking on the door. "Shit," she mutters, running a hand through her hair before moving to the door and opening it, almost falling over with the force of the hug Chloe gives her.

"Hi, there," Chloe says, moving back and quickly rotating to close the door before turning back to briefly press her lips to Beca's. She pulls back and raises an eyebrow as she looks Beca up and down for a moment. "Did you just wake up?"

Beca opens her mouth momentarily, about to completely deny the fact that yes, she did just wake up, but she closes it and purses her lips before nodding. Chloe chuckles, shaking her head. "Knew it."

Beca moves them to her kitchen, pouring two glasses of water and holding one up for Chloe. "How did you know I just woke up?"

Chloe chuckles, takes the glass, and leans against the counter. "Thanks. And it's kind of obvious. Your eyes are kind of droopy, still, and your hair's all messed up." Once Beca walks around the counter to stand next to Chloe, Chloe reaches up and brushes a strand of hair behind Beca's ear before leaning down to kiss her cheek. "It's really cute, actually. Not to mention you're wearing that shirt that you _stole _from me a few weeks ago, and you told me, like, yesterday that you sleep in it almost every night. Which is another really cute thing."

"It's not stealing unless you ask for it back," Beca protests, finishing off her glass of water before grinning at Chloe, "That isn't me prompting you to ask for it back, by the way. It's literally the comfiest t-shirt I've ever worn."

"You're full of it," Chloe scoffs jokingly, heading over to Beca's couch and settling down on it, "Go get ready so we can head over to the clearing."

"Yeah, yeah." Beca says, walking into her bedroom, "When do you start work today?" she calls.

Chloe had recently taken a paid internship position at a counseling/therapy firm not too far from the studio Beca worked at, and that required working demanding hours that Beca and Chloe often tried to work around most days; today was one of those days, and not being able to see each other very often wasn't _that _big of a deal, especially considering that Beca was a co-manager at Still In Public, so she could easily bend her schedule to accommodate for the two of them.

"I took the day off today," Chloe says, "My boss there is really lenient, especially because I haven't missed a single day of work since I started working there."

"Wait." Beca quickly brushes her hair and changes into a different t-shirt before walking out of her room and back to Chloe. "We get the whole day together?"

Chloe grins before getting up from the couch. "Surprise!"

* * *

The drive to the location of their date is dominated with Chloe rambling about her new job as she drives, and Beca's pretty content just the way they are; with the top of Chloe's convertible down and playing one of the many CD's Beca burned Chloe over the past two months, and listening to Chloe talk about the things she loves.

"It's pretty difficult sometimes, since I'm mainly doing paperwork and I _hate _office jobs that involve paperwork, but I'm sure it'll all be worth it in the end. Most things are," she says, seemingly making it a point to look over at Beca as she says those last three words.

Beca grins, takes the hand that's resting on the gearstick. "You're gross."

"You're grosser. You made me, like, five mix CDs in the past two months."

"That's not gross—"

"It's pretty gross." Chloe moves her hand from underneath Beca's to reach over and poke her side. Beca yelps in shock and jumps slightly. "Admit it, Mitchell."

"Not my fault," Beca grumbles, rubbing her side a little, "It's contagious. I've been spending too much time with you, lately."

Not that Beca would ever complain.

* * *

Once they get to the edge of the forest, Chloe parks the car and they start walking, blankets and bags of food in hand. Chloe's hand strays towards Beca's, and Beca instinctively moves her hand towards Chloe's and slides her fingertips along Chloe's palm before linking their fingers together.

It's weird, really, how it's become an instinct more than something that Beca almost has to force herself to do; physical contact with Chloe, let alone with _anyone, _is something that she didn't really think she would ever truly be comfortable with.

After a 45-minute long walk, most of the time being filled with Beca convinced that they're lost (they went off the trail almost half an hour ago), they get to a relatively large clearing without a single person in sight other than the two of them. Beca's breath catches in her throat slightly as her eyes wander around the area. "This place is perfect," she murmurs.

"I was hoping you'd like it." Chloe leads them towards the middle of the clearing and begins to lay down the blankets, bringing out the various snack foods and settling down. She pats the spot in front of her, and Beca sits, facing Chloe. "I figured you deserved some down time in a quiet place after all the work you've been doing."

"You deserve it, too," Beca says, "Brutal hours and all."

Chloe looks up and around the clearing, inhaling a little before smiling. "Any time with you is good, but this…I come here all the time by myself whenever I needed to take time off from life." She turns her gaze back to Beca. "Now I have company to share it with."

"I feel like I'm intruding or something," Beca admits sheepishly, picking off a piece of grass and fiddling with it, "Like, intruding on your safe haven."

Chloe reaches in to the small box of strawberries and starts to pick off the leaves at the top, shaking her head. "I brought you here for a reason."

"Oh?"

"Yeah." Chloe hesitates slightly, looking down at the strawberry before looking back up at Beca. "I mean, I know we discussed the whole 'gross mushy feelings' thing earlier, but I think it's about time that I let you know this."

Beca waits patiently, still fiddling with the piece of grass she picked up. Her mind is racing, trying to think of all of the worst-case scenarios (like she has been since the beginning of time), before realizing that Chloe wouldn't have brought her here, to her safe haven, to break bad news to her.

"This is my safe haven, like you said," Chloe starts. "I don't know. I feel comfortable when I'm here, mainly because it's so _quiet _and you can just lie down in the middle of this clearing without worrying about anyone staring at you and thinking you're crazy. You can dance around and sing at the top of your lungs and do goddamn cartwheels and no one would look at it and judge you." She pauses, looking around again. "I brought you here because I feel the same way around you."

"Are you implying that I don't judge you when you dance and sing like a maniac around me?" Beca jokes, causing Chloe to shake her head, laughing.

Chloe nudges Beca's arm a little, allowing her hand to move down to start fiddling with Beca's fingers. Beca drops the grass to allow access.

"That's exactly what I'm implying, Beca," Chloe murmurs. Beca sobers up a little, her eyes dropping down to look at their conjoined hands. "Aside from all the awkwardness at the beginning of our relationship, relationship meaning from the very beginning at my party to now, I don't think I've ever quite met anyone like you, Beca Mitchell. And—" Chloe pauses again, and Beca looks up to see something that looks akin to fear in her eyes.

"And what?"

Beca sees Chloe's eyes look very watery all of a sudden.

"I love you, Beca. I think I loved you from the first time I saw you, really. I just didn't realize it. I think love works in that kind of way, you know?" Chloe shrugs. "It sort of starts off as a subconscious thing, and then that subconscious thing starts working its way through your brain so that it's actually _there _and shouting at you and continuously reminding you that you're in love and it feels _fantastic_."

Beca's at a loss for words; not necessarily because she doesn't know what she should say, because she _does _know what she should say. Not because she doesn't feel it right back, because _God, _she felt it back, but because Chloe has brought her here into this clearing where she goes to sing and dance and do cartwheels whenever she feels sad and then compared Beca to this place. Because Beca can't recall the last time she's ever felt so appreciated by a person. Because Chloe makes Beca feel like she is the single most important person to her on this entire planet.

"You don't have to say it back," Chloe says reassuringly, squeezing Beca's fingers and smiling, "Just let me know if you're okay."

"I'm okay—fantastic," Beca says, leaning in to kiss Chloe's nose, "Thank you for bringing me here."

Chloe tilts her head up to meet Beca's lips, slowly moving the hand that had been in Beca's up to place it on the side of her neck to deepen the kiss. The two of them fall on to their sides, Chloe moving on top of Beca and tugging slightly on the hem of Beca's shirt, and tentatively, Beca starts to slip her hands underneath Chloe's henley. Chloe pulls back, and Beca tucks a strand of red hair behind her ear.

"Are you sure about this?" Chloe asks, "I don't want you to feel like you have to do anything you don't—"

Beca lifts her head up from the blanket to press her lips against Chloe's neck. They hadn't gotten _that _far since the first time they had met, and even though they had done this before, it was completely different; they weren't strangers anymore, and there was no way in hell Beca would be running away this time. "Since when are you hesitant about this kind of thing?" she says, grinning slightly. She hears Chloe breathe in sharply when she drags her lips along her neck before she chuckles breathily.

"Since I've been hanging out with you. It's contagious," she says, moving her head down to capture Beca's lips in another heated kiss, "I've been spending too much time with you lately."

* * *

When they get back to Beca's apartment, it's basically a repeat of their time in the clearing (Beca's not complaining), and they're lying in Beca's bed, Chloe trailing her fingers along the notches of Beca's spine.

"Weird how such little time has passed," Beca hums, resting her head on her arms as she lies on her stomach. Chloe props herself up on an elbow, now tracing soft patterns along the small of Beca's back.

"What do you mean?"

Beca shrugs. "We've only known each other for a few months, now."

"And?"

"Time is weird, that's all. I feel like I've known you since I was a kid."

"Is Beca Mitchell using clichés to woo her woman?" Chloe teases.

"Am not," Beca protests, blushing slightly.

"You are," Chloe says, "I've really gotten to you, haven't I? Besides—" she shifts herself so that she's now lying on her back, and Beca rolls to cuddle into her side. "Time's totally man-made, if you really think about it."

"How?"

"Well," she said, "it's a bit impossible to explain without sounding crazy, but I'll try. For starters, mayflies. Do you think mayflies know they only live for a week? 'Course not. Mayflies don't even know what a week is. Just like, I don't know, freaking antelopes don't know what a week is. Or rhinos. Or months or years or centuries. Time was invented by humans. It was only here in fragments before. Man pieced them together, I guess." She gazes into Beca's eyes before letting her eyes drift to the part of the blanket that Beca is fiddling with."The same way those buildings around this city weren't here before humans. They're real, just artificial. There were always caves and crevices, but buildings are organized; planned to the millimeter, just like time is measured to the millisecond. We're control freaks, you know? Humans, I mean. We like to have things real precise, even if they lose all their meaning that way."

Beca nods. "I wouldn't mind not having time," she said, "And by that I mean the label of time, not time itself. As long as I'm with you, you know?"

Chloe blushes, then giggles slightly. She looks like a high schooler with a crush, and Beca thinks it's adorable. "You're just trying to flatter me so you can get into my pants again."

"Excuse me, but you don't even _have _pants on for me to get into, compliments of me," Beca retorts.

Chloe shuffles closer to Beca to kiss her forehead. "I'm just saying. I know I make a big deal out of something like a two-month anniversary, but in the big picture, we've known each other for long enough. It's not weird."

Beca shakes her head. "Not weird at all."

* * *

Beca arrives at work the next morning and greets everyone with a smile on her face, just like she has been ever since her and Chloe had gotten together. Luke and Jessica are out of sight, though, which is odd, since Jessica is almost always around the CD shelves, and Luke has been spending most of his time downstairs, looking over the studio, as the studio had recently hired new renovators to completely redo the studio.

Needing to ask about scheduling, she walks upstairs to Luke's office to see that he's excitedly talking on the phone, and Jessica suddenly runs up to her, positively beaming,

"Beca!" she exclaims, "We have the best surprise for you!"

Luke hangs up, and Beca grins widely at the two of them. "Suspense is _so _not okay, if that's what you two are going at."

Jessica turns to Luke, who grins at Beca. "Congratulations, Becky. DeSoto Records heard all of your produced songs and mixes, and they're asking if you want to sign on with them. I mean, it'll be sad to see you go, but this is _huge._ They're one of the biggest record labels in Washington."

"Wait—what?" Beca asks, dumbfounded. "They want _me _to work with them?"

"Starting two weeks from now. They'll pay to fly you out there and everything, and they're going to rent out a flat for you for a few months so you can go work with them and see how things work out and if you like it or not, and I heavily doubt that the latter will be the case."

"Jesus Christ!" Beca yells, jumping up before pulling Jessica into a hug, "DeSoto Records wants me!"

"They want you bad!" Jessica says back, laughing, "Just like that lady friend of yours who's totally changed your mood for the better," she adds with a wink.

Beca starts to nod for a moment before she feels her heart suddenly plummet down.

_Chloe. _

Washington.

On the other side of the country.

_Oh._

* * *

**A/N: Please continue leaving reviews and messages in my ask box on Tumblr! I really appreciate each and every one of them :) see you guys next chapter.**


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